7 | Stressful Days

7 | It is now many, many years later, around 2007. The little girl is now married and in her mid-30s. She is in a somewhat happy marriage. She is just about three months pregnant with their first child.

She lives many miles away from her parents, with whom the relationship had always ebbed and flowed. Her father had been sick a few years ago, but he survived it. But, for the past 6 months, the young woman had not spoken to her parents; due to her father’s latest illness, she found the will and courage to talk to them again. She knew her father had not been well, didn’t know to what extent, and he had been in the hospital for several days. Since she couldn’t be there with him, she called him, perhaps, twice. He didn’t sound that great. Sounded very tired. However, she was able to tell him that she was pregnant, and she thought he sounded happy about having another grandchild (the first from the young woman’s sister-in-law).

Some days later, one night while the young woman slept, the phone rang at 3 o’clock in the morning. It was her mother. ”Dad died today,“ she said. After a few more questions and answers, phones were hung up, and then the young woman’s tears began and didn’t stop for a while. She took some time off work to process her emotions about her father’s death.

Plus, since she was in her mid-30s and just three months pregnant, she knew she had to be careful about her stress level(s) to not miscarry the baby. Her family wanted her to go to the funeral, and maybe she would have gone, but there were too many factors that worried her for the health of her baby.

Her mother smoked like a chimney, and the apartment stunk it, too. Plus, the second-hand smoke would have harmed the unborn baby, plus the young woman’s body (lungs) had grown accustomed to not living in smoke, so breathing it would have been very hard for her to do. So, had she gone to the funeral, she would have had to stay with her brother. Family offered to pay for a flight for her to go to the funeral, but money was not a factor in her decision. Her family thought that her husband was controlling her and not allowing her to go. Neither of those were factors in her decision to not go.... the main factor in everything was all the mounds and mounds of stress she would have to endure—from her mother, from her brother, her sister-in-law, her aunt (dad’s side)—as well as ALL THE SADNESS with which she would be surrounded and from which she wouldn’t be able to escape. The young woman worried that all that stress and sadness would be just the combo that could cause her to miscarry her first child, and she didn’t want that to happen. The young woman still had to endure the stress from afar (and she wasn’t even there), anyway, because her family did not understand at all why she didn’t go to the funeral. The debates took some time to stop. Even after telling them over and over, her family still didn’t believe her and/or they didn’t think it was a good enough reason. But, it was definitely good enough for the young woman. After all, she was enduring her own personal stress and sadness and had to deal with her father’s dying, let alone trying to fend off her family’s stress.

Several days later, the young woman went back to work. And, when her pregnancy reached four months, she knew she was past that very fragile and worrisome time, and that the baby was safe. Early the next year, she and her husband welcomed a baby girl to the world.