Maybe the Maternity Ward Isn't Made for All Mothers.

It had been one of the most mentally and physically exhausting days that I had ever gone through. With an IV in my arm and antibiotics running through me to bring down my fever, it wasn’t hard for me to fall asleep quickly that night. Yet, when the nurse came in during the late hours of the night to change out my IV bag, there was no need for her to wake me as I was already wide awake. I had been laying there staring at the ceiling with swollen eyes – I had been woken up by the sounds of a baby crying. The woman in the room beside us had just given birth to her baby. Several hours earlier, when I had given birth to our stillborn baby boy, there was no crying. The only tears were our own. It was just more of the deafening silence that I had been starting to get used to.

Even though we were given one of the most private rooms the hospital could give us, it was still on the maternity floor. We were still surrounded by mothers and families who were welcoming their newborn, breathing, babies to the world. All I could think of was, why do they have us here? How can they have us staying in a room surrounded by these euphoric families welcoming new life? If I had to walk by someone carrying out their newborn baby when we were leaving the hospital without ours, I was going to have a full blown breakdown. But I tried to be realistic and rationalize why they had us there. This was, after all, the ward specifically made for taking care of women giving birth. They had all of the necessary medical equipment, all of the wonderful and appropriately trained labour nurses, the properly set delivery rooms. But… I still had to wake up that night to the sounds of a crying baby.