Weeks in hospital while the world needed me

(MY story #3) At 32 weeks, I started bleeding and ended up in hospital for several days.

It was the first time, as a mother, that I had been forced to stop. Physically, I was held in place. Mentally, I was anything but resting – my head was full of fears and anxiety, convinced that the world would collapse without me holding it all together.

While I lay pinned to that bed, my oldest son Alus had his interview for primary school. How would my husband manage it? What would he dress him in for something this important? Would Alus say the right things? Would he come across well? The questions wouldn’t stop.

When they came to visit me after the interview, I got my answer. Alus walked in wearing tracksuit pants, hair looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. I was horrified. This was not how I would have sent him to something so important. Well, we didn’t get into that Catholic primary school. And it was just almost at the end of our street.

Then a nurse came to me with words I’ve never forgotten: “If you don’t slow down, you will stay in this hospital until the birth. We have a bed ready for you.”

I was terrified. Eight more weeks in hospital while my family needed me at home? While the Polish playgroup needed me? While the Polish Saturday School needed me? The whole world needed me – or so I believed.

I promised to slow down. So, they let me go home.