Pregnant in a hurricane

Text

I’m a nurse at a local area hospital. I was scheduled to work Sunday August 27th, Harvey was just making its way into Houston it was raining but not badly, I told my husband I would drive carefully. I had been stuck at work for hurricane Ike in 2008, this was not my first rodeo, I was prepared with an overnight bag and my favorite pillow, I was going to go to work and take care of my patients just like any other day, but this was not just any other day. Just the week before my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first child. We all soon found out that Harvey was very much different than Ike. Everyone was glued to their tevivision sets as the water raised over 59, houses were flooded many patientswere displaced and didn’t have a home to go back too but we were all safe in the hospital, we didn’t loose power, the water didn’t come farther than the parking lot but very few people could make it into work and no one could leave. My first pregnancy “symptoms” started at the hospital, morning sickness and heartburn. One of my coworkers gave me some tums that helped a lot. I ended up sleeping on a blowup mattress on the floor in one of our conference rooms with about 20 other people for two nights. I had not planned on staying that long, my husband was able to make it to the hospital with extra clothes he assured me he was okay and the house was fine. I overheard many coworkers on the phone talking to their families as their homes flooded and they couldn’t leave to be with their families. A year later our baby girl is 4 months old and has suffered no ill effects of the stress a hurricane. I saw the best and strongest come out in my work family, the storm took its toll on us but we made it through better and stronger.

Creator

C Barnes

Title

Pregnant in a hurricane

Type

personal narratives

Language

en

Rights

This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Source

This item was contributed via the Harvey Memories Project "Contribute an Item" form.

Date Created

2017-08-30

Date Submitted

2018-08-30

Date Available

2018-08-30

Spatial Coverage

+29.995880-095.275998/
Memorial hermann north east

Geolocation