The Lockdown Chronicles (Part 3): The Lonely Hallway and the Chorus of Cries

The adrenaline of a home birth makes you feel invincible—until it wears off. Then, reality hits.

Heavy. Sudden. Cold.

After that surreal car ride—with my newborn in towels and my eldest son holding the placenta in a bucket—we reached the Emergency Room. I was wheeled through sliding doors into a world that felt alien. Everything was masked and sterile. The silence wasn’t peaceful; it was tense.

The Separation

Almost immediately, the doctors found my baby’s blood sugar was low. Before I could even process that he was finally here, he was gone. Straight to the NICU.

My own body began to buckle under the trauma. My blood pressure spiked, and because I was nearing forty, the doctors weren’t taking chances. I was admitted to a private room for monitoring and medication.

I had packed a hospital bag, Alhamdulillah, but not for this. I had a few dresses and exactly one clean abaya. I hadn’t realized that having a baby in the NICU meant I would have to find the strength to get up, get dressed, and trek through public corridors just to see him.

The Sting and the Fear

In your most vulnerable moments, you reach for your person. I called my husband.

The phone kept ringing. No answer.

With the benefit of hindsight and grace, I understand now that he was drowning, too. He was balancing eight children at home with a newborn in the NICU. He was carrying his own massive weight.

But I have to be true to my experience. In that room, in that state, I felt abandoned. To tell the story any other way would be to erase the reality of my own heart. I don’t say this to attack him; I say it because, in the quiet of that hospital, the silence was deafening.

Beneath the loneliness was a sharp, jagged fear. I spent those hours pleading with Allah that my high blood pressure wouldn’t turn into postpartum preeclampsia. I had tawakkul; I knew Allah was the best of Protectors. But I am human. I still worried. I wondered how the gears of our massive home would keep turning if I wasn’t there to move them.

The Chorus of the NICU

I stayed in the hospital for two days; my son stayed for three. I spent every ounce of my energy talking to doctors, persistent and constant, wanting him home.

Because of the strict COVID protocols, I had no help. To see my baby, I had to get there myself. So I got up. Slowly. I put on my one clean abaya and I walked. Those hallways felt miles long. Sometimes the room would spin, and I’d have to lean against the cold wall, breathing until the world stopped shaking.

Twice a day—once in the morning and once in the evening—I would spend one to two hours sitting in the NICU.

It was a heavy place. There was no separation of care; fragile preemies fighting for their lives were in the same room as babies like mine, who just needed a glucose IV.

The sound stays with you. A room full of tiny, distressed voices. As I sat there for those hours, trying to breastfeed and bond, my heart stretched in ways I wasn’t prepared for. I heard my own baby, but I also heard all the others—the ones I couldn’t comfort. In the sterile quiet of the hospital, those tiny cries felt like a physical weight I had to carry back to my room.

The Beautiful Trauma

On the second day, I was discharged. Walking out of a maternity ward with empty arms is a specific kind of pain. I had to leave him for one more night.

The next afternoon, my husband and I returned. I sat with my son, breastfeeding him, determined to show the doctors he was strong. Finally, they agreed he could come home, provided we used complementary formula and returned for a checkup. I didn’t care about the extra steps; I just wanted my son.

I remember crossing the doorway of our home, and suddenly, the circle was closed.

The house exploded. After days of worry, the other kids welcomed their new brother with pure, unfiltered joy. Cheers, small hands reaching out to touch his face, and a flurry of excitement filled every corner. The sterile silence was finally replaced by the beautiful, loud reality of our family.

People ask if it was traumatic. In many ways, it was. But when I look back at the bathtub, the car ride, the NICU, and that final, joyful noise of my children—I see the beauty, too.

It was a steep journey. But it was ours.

---

💬 A Thought for You Have you ever gone through something that felt both terrifying and beautiful at the same time? How do you hold both of those feelings together? I’d really love to hear your story 🤍