The day started like any other one. I had planned a casual mall outing with my son, who was around 18 months old at the time, and my two closest friends. I had been feeling mild abdominal discomfort since the morning, but brushed it off as gas and took an antacid. After all, I was a mom now, so there was little time to indulge in aches or pains.
By the time I met my friends, the pain had sharpened. Still, I kept going. But that afternoon, as we sat in the food court, the pain escalated into something I couldn’t ignore. Then everything blurred, and I almost passed out in front of a stunned crowd.
One of my friends, a doctor, quickly took charge. Within minutes, I was rushed to the emergency room at the hospital where she worked. I was barely conscious, nauseated, and in blinding pain. Tests confirmed what she had suspected: a severely inflamed appendix, about to burst. My friends informed my husband, who came right away, and the doctors told him I needed emergency surgery. But the surgery wasn’t what scared me the most. I was worried about my baby.
Amid the chaos, one thought overpowered my pain
I wasn’t afraid of the surgery or the possibility of complications. I was afraid of not being there for my one-and-a-half-year-old son. He had never spent a night away from me or his father. He only ate what I prepared, slept cuddled next to me, and cried at the idea of anyone else changing his diaper. The thought of him waking up in another place, calling for me and not finding me, was more painful than the physical agony I was going through at the hospital.
To make things worse, no private hospital rooms were available. That meant my son couldn’t stay with my husband while he was with me at the hospital. My mind spiraled. Between vomiting from pain and being prepped for surgery, I kept repeating, “He won’t eat. He won’t sleep. He’ll cry for me.”
Our backup help was out of town
As if things weren’t bad enough, my mother and parents-in-law were out of town, leaving me worried about who we could turn to. But in that crucial moment, help came from the people who could. One of my sisters, despite her full-time job and three young children of her own, took in my son without hesitation. She put her own busy life on hold.
Later, she told me how my son was confused and quiet at first in response to all that was happening. But slowly, with the warmth of his aunt and the playfulness of his cousins, he was soon at ease. He even let her feed him and change him, something I believed was impossible.
My other sister, husband, and some cousins on my husband’s side took turns staying at the hospital with me, offering reassuring words to ease my worries. The surgery went smoothly. When I regained consciousness, the first thing I asked was whether my son had eaten. My husband smiled and updated me about how he was having fun and properly ate what my sister made. I’ve never felt so relieved.
The experience changed how I viewed motherhood
This experience taught me that loving a child means surrendering to the fact that your heart now lives outside your body. You could be on an operating table with your insides screaming, but your mind will still be with your baby, wondering if he’s had dinner.
That incident made me realize that even with a strong support system from loved ones, you can’t stop worrying about your child in distressing times. The helplessness, the guilt, the fear that he needed me, and I wasn’t there, made me feel so vulnerable.
Now, whenever a mom tells me she’s tired, anxious, or afraid, I tell her I understand in a way I never could before. I’ve lived it, on a hospital bed, in blinding pain, with only one prayer in my heart: Let my baby be okay.
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