Noor

I couldn't breathe out...it felt like all the air was accumulating inside me, like a balloon. And then I started to panic. I understood what had happened to me before this point, but what was happening now? I should know the answer to this question. I may be a senior resident in pediatrics, but I knew adult anatomy, and physiology and a bit of critical care medicine. Why couldn't I remember anything now?

"Noor, I am going to put this face mask on you so we can give you a breathing treatment through it, ok?", I heard Madi's friendly voice, "Stay with me...ok...we'll take care of you"

I nodded and let her put the plastic mask on my face as the cool mist coming from it hit the inside of my mouth and throat.

"Breathe through your mouth", she instructed as she placed her stethoscope on my chest and listened to my breathing.

"Noor, your lungs are clear. It looks like its just your upper airway that may be swelling up", Madi's voice came through my foggy brain again.

Then I heard another familiar male voice, "That happens sometimes when the breathing tube irritates the airway and causes swelling, which becomes worse when the tube is taken out. But we just gave you steroids and this inhaled medicine and together they should bring down the swelling quickly"

"Noor, is your breathing getting any worse?", the nurse asked, a few minutes later.

I shook my head.

"Is it getting better?", an older male's voice spoke out

I nodded.

"Good girl...", Madi said, smiling at me as she squeezed my hand gently.

The only voice I had not heard yet was the only one I desperately needed to hear. I looked around the room full of people, and then I saw him, standing in the corner of the room talking intently with the ICU attending. Our eyes met and he smiled at me. I could immediately feel my whole body relax. Even after being married for more than a year, his smile took my breath away.

Ok, maybe right now the swelling in my airway was taking my breath away...but still...

I heard more voices in the periphery, but none of them mattered to me. I just wanted to keep gazing at him, because he was my safe space, away from the bright lights of the room, and the beeping monitors.

And I am glad I didn't look away, because I saw his lips move silently as he said 'I love you'.

From all the way across the room, over all the people and sounds and equipment, my husband said the three words that he knew always calmed me down.

I wanted to say them back, but he couldn't see my lips because my mouth was covered by the face mask through which I was inhaling the medicine. So I blinked slowly, hoping he would understand what I meant.

And he did, because his lips moved again as he silently said, 'I know' and smiled at me again.

Who knew that we would learn to read lips and eyes so well. But I guess that shouldn't be unexpected when two people, whose souls were meant for each other, were so in love the way we were.

I love Salman and our baby, please let nothing happen to them...was the last thing I remember praying for before everything had blacked out at home. By the time I had gotten back home from rounds the morning I fell sick, I had started to feel worse but I had figured that it was just dehydration. After all, I was pregnant and even though I carried a water bottle with me it was still easy to forget to drink.

So I drank 2 or 3 glasses of water and went to bed, hoping to feel better. Instead, I woke up even more dizzy than before. I had no idea what time it was then, but I knew I had to call someone for help...what I had was clearly not a run-of-the-mill cold. Except my phone was in the living room and it seemed that I had collapsed as I tried to make my way there.

That is...till Kim found me. I may not be alive if it hadn't been for her.

I had so much to thank her for

I looked around the room till I found my two other friends...well one friend and one friend-turned-ex-fiancé. It was so weird, yet somehow comforting, that my care was in the hands of these two. I loved Madi, she had always come across as a sensible, down-to-earth, big-hearted person. And despite everything that happened between us I still respected Omar a lot, and trusted him.

Then I noticed something, clearly the sedation had almost completely worn off now, and my breathing was much better. Omar and Madi had blank expressions on their face and didn't even look at each other, but their body language told a completely different story.

It was like watching an interpretive dance, where both of them knew each other well enough to anticipate each others moves, yet were stubborn enough to not accept that they also truly cared about each other. When she was looking for a pen, he silently put the one in his hand in front of her. When he was looking for an alcohol wipe to clean my skin before drawing blood, she handed one to him without a word. They reminded me of us...my husband and I. 

I looked at my him again, and took a deep breath remembering again how much I adored him.

I hope Madi and Omar can find the same thing.

Eventually, people started filing out of the room, till Madi, Salman and I were the only ones left.

"Ok Noor, I am going to take this mask off. Your airway sounds completely normal now, but any hint of this happening again, you tell us right away ok?", Madi said as she listened to my lungs again.

I nodded, "I will...thanks again for everything"

"Of course Noor...", she squeezed my hand, and smiled, "Wish I could hug you though"

"Hey...", Salman interrupted her, "I get to her hug her before anyone else, and I will as soon as all these lines and wires come out"

Madi laughed, as Salman bought my fingertips to his lips and kissed them lightly.

"OK...ok, but I am second in line. I need you to stay under observation here for a little bit, but I was going to see if the neonatal ICU is ok with you going to see your daughter after that, if you want"

"Yes! Yes...of course I do...please, please, please", I exclaimed. Salman had shown me pictures but I was dying to hold my daughter.

Salman's cautious voice interrupted my excitement, "Noor...honey...our daughter is not going anywhere, maybe you should take a nap and rest first"

But I had already slept and rested before my breathing issue happened and there was no force in the world that could stop me from seeing my daughter now. So it was decided that the nurse would help me clean up a bit and then I would go meet my daughter after a little while.

When Madi left, the nurse came in with some wet washcloths, "Let's clean up your face and neck with these"

"I can do that for her", Salman immediately spoke up.

The nurse grinned at him and then me, "Of course you can. Noor, this man is crazy about you...in case you didn't know that already"

"I am crazy about him too", I smiled at my husband, and he flashed his breathtaking smile at me.

He has to stop doing that, otherwise these heart and breathing monitors will start going off!

When the nurse stepped out, Salman took the washcloth and gently wiped my forehead, "How are you feeling...my love?"

"Honey...my love...what's with all the nicknames?", I teased him.

"I had a lot of time to think sitting on this chair, and I realized that I never gave you a nickname. So I was testing the top two on my list"

"I like them both", I smiled at him. Salman had never called me anything but Noor, but a nickname would be nice too. 

But to my surprise, instead of him smiling back at me, a sadness came over him, "I actually don't...I love calling you Noor...because you, my gorgeous, intelligent, funny wife...are the literal light of my life"

He gently held my chin with one hand, and bought the washcloth down to my cheeks, but did not break eye contact me.

"You complete me, and without you there is nothing but darkness. So my dear wife...Noor is perfect and the only name I ever want to call you"

I knew I should say something in response to his words, but I couldn't look away or think when he was looking at me like that. All I wanted to do was pull him and make him kiss me, but I was still hooked on to IV lines and monitor leads. However, I did notice something else that I hadn't till now.

He seemed to have aged years since the last time I saw him, his eyes were warm but sunken, his cheeks were sagging and he looked like he had lost weight, the laugh lines around his mouth were deeper, and he hadn't shaved in days.

I had been so absorbed in myself, that I hadn't seen how he had barely been able to survive himself. He loved us...me and my daughter, the last week must have been hell for him.

I needed to be closer to him, so I reached over and took off the blood pressure cuff that was holding one of my arm in place.

"Oh Salman, come here", I pulled him in for a half-hug, "I love you...I am so sorry that you had deal with everything on your own"

He didn't say anything, but as he leaned his head on my shoulder I could feel his body shudder.

"I almost lost you Noor. I almost lost everything I had ever wanted", the pain in his voice broke my heart.

I let him lean on me for another minute, but then pulled back, because I needed to look at him and say something, "But you didn't Salman, you still have us. God works in miraculous ways, we were destined to go through this...and I know that we will come out stronger, together"

He nodded, and smiled at me as I wiped away the tears that had pooled in his eyes. 

"Come on, help me clean up, I want to meet our daughter", I told him, as a smile returned to those lips I couldn't wait to feel with my own again.

He continued where he had left off, using a washcloth her wiped my face gently, as well as my neck. I licked my lips, that felt really dry. Probably because of being on the ventilator for a week.

"Here, I have the lip balm you like", he said, and he pulled out the strawberry flavored balm from the pocket of jacket.

"Why are you carrying my lip balm?", that's not something he had ever done before.

He lowered his voice and said, "Nurse Amber kept putting that generic petroleum jelly on your lips, so when she wasn't looking I would wipe it off and put the balm on instead. I thought you'd like it"

Aww...could he be any sweeter?

I still had IV lines in both hands, with fluids and medicines going through them so he put the lip balm on for me. I thought I was almost ready to meet my daughter, when he pulled out a small hair brush and my hair tie from his jacket pocket as well.

"Do you want me to make your hair in a bun? I got these just in case the hospital comb pulled on your hair"

I nodded, wondering how he had managed to make me fall in love with him even more than I already was.

Salman had just finished brushing my hair and was tying it up when Omar knocked on the door and entered.

"Hey guys...uh...turn the PDA down a little, you have a bit off an audience outside"

That's when Salman and I turned to look at the nurses station right across my room and through the clear glass doors, saw a bunch of middle-aged women in scrubs, standing there smiling at us and then a few give us a thumbs up.

"Salman...dude...you have to bring down the bar a bit for the rest of us men, otherwise a few of these ladies are about to leave their husbands", Omar said with a laugh.

"Oh buzz off", Salman grinned back and threw a washcloth at him.

I just sat there red faced, and embarrassed.

"Ok...ok...I am going to draw the curtains. But hurry up. Your baby's nurse said she is awake right now, if you want to go see her", Omar laughed again and left the room.

When he did, I turned towards Salman, "Oh my God...why didn't you look at the door?"

"Because I was looking at you", he chuckled, "Its ok, I know some of those nurses, they took care of you"

"Great!", I playfully rolled my eyes, "This is what I get for marrying the hospital's chick magnet"

"Don't worry, there will never be anyone else for me", he said, as he leaned in to kiss me on my cheek, his lips lingering there for a few seconds, as I felt his warm breath on my neck.

Then he looked straight at me, and is his deep, husky voice said, "You will always be my Noor"

I would have said something in return but the heart monitor started beeping because my heart rate had jumped above the upper limit. And that made nurse Amber come into the room.

Before she could ask me what happened, I said, "I feel fine, I think the leads are not working properly"

But one look at my flushed cheeks and Salman who was doubling over with laughter in the corner of the room told her what she needed to know.

"Sure...if you say so", she smirked and then added, "The wheelchair is here, so when you're done romancing let me know"

"We're done", Salman said from the corner, as I shot him a psuedo-angry look. The correct answer would have been 'we were not romancing'

Amber and him, though, kept chuckling as they helped me into the wheelchair. And it wasn't till I was rolling through the hospital that it hit me how different it was being a patient. Everyone looked at you differently, some with pity, some with curiosity, some with indifference.

I also knew that our lives were about to get a whole lot tougher than we had ever imagined it to be. Just the act of getting up from the bed and into the wheelchair had made me get out of breath. I would probably need to be in the hospital for a few more days and then require rehab, and between my illness and a premature baby we would have a bunch of doctor's appointment. 

All of that meant time off from work, and unfortunately, the graduate medical education program in US had no provision for a maternity leave. My colleagues who had normal deliveries would piece together 6 weeks of maternity leave by using up their 3 weeks of allowed vacation time per year, and adding on an extra 3 weeks at the end of the residency. 

I have already used up 1 week of those 6 weeks. How am I going to manage all of this?

It should have felt weird walking through the hospital, pushing my wife on a wheelchair as we made our way to meet our daughter. We had walked those hallways thousands of times before. These walls had seen our entire story played out in front of them. But right then all I did was pray that my family would make it through our ordeal without any long-term consequences, and be thankful that the fears that were eating me up last week had not come true.

I knew I shouldn't have broken down like that in front of Noor, she needed to focus on getting better herself, not worry about me. But when she tugged at my shirt and pulled me closer, I couldn't help but let out some of the pain and agony that I had been carrying around. Today was the first day that I had actually been able to breathe since the beginning of last week.

You can't think of your fear right now, your family needs you in a way they have never done before.

I knew that, I would need to step up and take on a role that I was afraid I may not be able to do justice to. But when we reached our daughter's incubator in the neonatal ICU, I knew that this was not the time to worry about that. This was the time to introduce my daughter to her mom.

I helped Noor out of the wheelchair and into the comfortable recliner chair next to the incubator, as the nurse took our daughter out gently and helped Noor hold her.

"Asalaam ulaikum little one", Noor whispered lovingly to her daughter, "I am your Mama...I am sorry I haven't been there for you, but I have always, always loved you"

I thought my heart was literally going to burst with the emotions that I was feeling right now, as I looked at my beautiful wife, with tears streaming down her cheeks, hold the daughter we had together...the perfect of symbol of our love.

And somehow our daughter, as little as she was, knew exactly who her mom was because she did not blink her eyes even once as she stared back at Noor's face.

"I love her", Noor said as she looked up at me.

I hadn't realized that I was holding back tears as well, until I tried to reply to Noor and my voice came out in a whisper, "I love her too"

"Salman...we have so much to be thankful for", Noor said, as she smiled at our daughter again. and kissed her on her head.

This...this is why I fell in love with her.

My wife's ability to somehow take a broken man, or a mind numbingly horrible situation, and look for the best in them, is why I loved her so much. Her infectious optimism, her bright smile even in the face of adversity, her warmth and affection...that was why she was my Noor.

"I want to do kangaroo care with her", Noor said, motioning me to help her.

I immediately drew the curtain around us for privacy, having learnt my lesson from earlier in the day. And then I helped Noor slip our daughter under her gown so they had close skin-to-skin contact.

"We have to name her...we can't keep calling her baby girl Noor", I said, sitting back down in my chair.

"Just what I was thinking. Do you have suggestions?"

I actually did, on my phone. One night as I was sitting in Noor's room, I had made a whole list of names and their meanings. So I pulled it up, and while baby girl Noor fell asleep peacefully in the warmth of her mother, we discussed potential name for her. In the end we both loved the name Ayah, which meant 'miracle' in Arabic, which she sure was.

And so at a little over 1 week of age, tiny little baby girl Noor, became Ayah Salman.

"Well, that was number 1 out of a million decisions we will have to make for her", I smiled at Noor, who was gently caressing Ayah's head. 

She smiled back at me, and reached out her hand to grab mine and squeeze it, "And we'll do it together"

I took a deep breath and sat back in my chair, admiring the view in front of me. There was so much work to be done, the time we both took off from work needed to be planned, call schedules had to be moved around, nanny or daycare to be decided upon, not to mention Noor had been adamant that she wanted to try and breastfeed and I would have to buy a breast pump so she could start pumping. We hadn't even bought a crib yet, or a car seat. And my mother-in-law's visa was still stuck in the US embassy. 

I had started to make a list of all of that, complete with excel sheets and links to the different websites. It was a way to keep myself occupied as I sat next to Noor in the ICU. Imagining a life with the two people who meant the most to me was the only thing that had kept me going. That, and holding my daughter.

But for now, all of that could wait. For now, I just wanted to revel in the way my daughter was snuggling with her mother, who had survived the most harrowing experience of her life, yet had somehow emerged from it more beautiful and more loving than before.

For now, I was just going to sit back and enjoy being a husband and a father.

"So what is happening between Omar and Madi?", Noor asked, looking up at me.