Dispatch From a High-Risk Pregnancy Hospital Stay: 'I feel like I'm not his mom'

Watching my 19-month-old son leave me at the hospital again, I'm overcome with one of the worst feelings that a parent could experience: the feeling that that I'm not his mom anymore.

It’s been 4 weeks and 5 days since I’ve been living in the hospital.

Not that I’m counting.

Today was not unlike many others, when my au pair was bringing our youngest, Walker, to visit me. I was admitted at 24 weeks, and am stuck here for the remainder of my high-risk twin pregnancy.

At one-and-a-half years old, Walker is the most challenging visitor to host of our crew of three. The lights, machines, sounds, and wires are so intriguing for a curious little one that he’s often distracted from even saying hi to me.

In his defense, the rolling IV machine makes for a pretty fun push toy, as does the privacy curtain blocking the door. But still, a hug would be nice.

After being admitted the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we quickly learned that one-on-one visits with Walker made a lot more sense than attempting to wrangle him with the two other kids en tow. So today, like many days, our au pair brought Walker alone.

After giving the IV machine and baby monitors the attention they deserved, I eventually got a mommy hug. It wasn’t the big, “I missed you!” hug that you might imagine after not seeing your baby for nearly 48 hours. It was more of a, “I-missed-you-but-now-I-really-want-a-Hershey Kiss,” type of ordeal. But I’ll take what I can get. In the hospital, sweet baby snuggles are far and few between. There’s too much fun stuff for a kid to do.

I’m allowed to walk around on my High-Risk Pregnancy floor unattended, but if I want to exit the glass doors to walk around the rest of the hospital, I’m required to have a wheelchair and another adult accompany me.

(That’s why, if I refer to this situation as “hospital prison,” I’m hardly exaggerating.)

Today, since Walker is eager to explore, my au pair and I do just that—grab a wheelchair, put Walker in my lap, and head downstairs. We grab a snack from Panera (my saving grace from hospital food—that was, until I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes), and let him roam free.

It’s refreshing to get outside my room and watch my youngest be entertained by something as simple as the rainbow colored stools in the hospital lobby. But in my condition, I can only do so much to play with him and ensure he stays safe on his newfound, state-of-the-art playground.

I can’t chase after him, I can’t stand up and walk with him for more than a few minutes, and I definitely can’t lift or carry him. (Or at least, I’m not supposed to.) So, I watch as my au pair does the job for me.

By now, Walker understands the drill. He looks to her when he wants something or needs help. While I’m incredibly grateful for her support, it’s soul crushing to be his number two. I want so badly to be the one to hold his hand as he jumps down the rainbow stools, chase him around the germ-filled lobby, and grab him when he’s being naughty. But instead, I sit and watch him through what feels like a glass window.

Walker’s visits max out at about two hours. Longer than that and he gets overtired, overstimulated, or upset. (Our older two, on the other hand, could happily spend their entire day with me in the hospital, if schedules allowed.)

As my time with Walker comes to an end, I get back in my wheelchair while my au pair sets Walker on my lap. Because I’m not allowed outside my unit without another adult, I can’t say goodbye to them downstairs—Walker and my au pair must wheel me back up.

Once we arrive on the Women’s High-Risk Pregnancy floor, we go to the front desk to get my au pair a parking pass and start saying our goodbyes.

This is always the hardest part.

You’d think I’d get used to it—saying goodbye after living in a hospital for over a month. But I can honestly say that I haven’t. More often than not, I start sobbing as I turn around to make my way down the long hallway, arriving to my hospital room where I can safely cry alone.

For reasons that I can’t explain, today’s goodbye was particularly hard. It started out the same as it always does, with Walker understanding that it was time to leave, cuing his two favorite and most well-pronounced words.

“Bye bye,” he said to me, waving his hand as he headed for the elevator, eager to press the button again. My au pair picked him up so he could reach it, then carried him away inside. As the elevator doors closed, I was overcome by one of the worst feelings I’d ever experienced as a parent.

“I feel like I’m not even his mom anymore.”

Of course, I knew this wasn’t the case and reminded myself that this situation is only temporary. But after living here for over a month and seeing my baby who can hardly talk come to understand that someone else takes care of him now—and that after a few hours with mommy he has to leave and say “bye bye”—it makes you feel insignificant as a parent. Like his life is continuing on, without me even there.

There’s no way to avoid this feeling from the four walls of my sterile hospital room, so instead, I choose to acknowledge it and do my best to move on. A mindless Netflix show usually helps me calm down.

After a month, I’ve come to understand that the pain of missing my three children doesn’t subside, nor does the exhaustion and crying. In many ways, it actually gets worse. But through the tears, I also remember that all this pain and suffering is happening for a reason: to safely give birth to twin boys.

I went back and forth about sharing this experience and starting a Substack.

As a longtime writer and video producer, I’m used to telling other peoples’ stories. It makes me uncomfortable sharing my own. It also feels strange to share my story when I don’t yet know the ending, or fully understand why God chose our family for this trial. But in writing it down and sharing bits and pieces with the world, my thought is that I can begin to make sense of this puzzle.

And while it was a very rare pregnancy complication that landed me in this position, I also think that by sharing it, others might identify with pieces of my story, perhaps using them to complete their own puzzle. However rare, these complications happen and no mother should suffer alone.

I value my children’s privacy and don’t intend on using this platform to speak for them or to tell their stories. Only mine, as I navigate a complicated high-risk pregnancy, an inevitable NICU stay, then life at home with 5 kids under the age of 6.

In the coming days, I’ll go back and start from the beginning and explain how I got here.

(Ok, we all know how it started. But you get what I mean.)

From finding out we were pregnant with twins, to being diagnosed with a rare and even deadly condition for the babies, to getting fetal surgery at Johns Hopkins, to being admitted as an in-patient at 24 weeks, a lot has gone “wrong.” It’s tempting to ask, “Why me?”

But at the same time, a lot has gone right.

Already, I’m 29 weeks. That’s farther along than we ever thought we’d make it. And often, even from a lonely hospital room, I find myself asking, “What I did to deserve this beautiful family of mine?”

Through it all, no matter how long the days, my husband and I have chosen to stay positive and be grateful. We know that however hard this journey is, it will all be worth it in the end.

In only a matter of weeks, we’ll be holding two brand new, precious baby boys. Walker might not be able to understand why mommy can’t lift him to press the elevator buttons and carry home right now, but one day, he’ll get it. And hopefully, he’ll also come to understand how this situation only made me love him more as his mom.

Thank you for reading, and for all the support. If you want to hear more about this journey, go ahead and Subscribe below. I have lots more to share.

With love from a hospital bed,

Kelsey