I waited for more than one hour for Tai to come out from the lab. When she finally came out, I quickly went to ask her the results. She said everything was fine; nothing had gone wrong with the baby. After I heard that, I felt so much better than I ever felt before. We went down to meet the doctor again and received a prescription for some medicine. It surprised me a little because it cost more than a thousand baht! It is certainly costing us a lot of money now.

We then took a samlor to the market to eat. While we were eating, Tai started to feel strange. It wasn’t anything to do with the baby, it was different this time. She started to be sick and puked out what she had just eaten. Then she felt faint and couldn’t walk because her stomach was hurting. I quickly paid for the food and took her back to the hospital.

We went straight to the doctor’s room. There was someone else inside the room but I didn’t care. I was panicking and scared and didn’t know what to do. Tai went to lie down and was waiting for the doctor.

After the doctor checked everything, he said there was nothing wrong with her. He said it was maybe a warning that it was nearly time and that there was nothing to worry about. I believed what the doctor said but I still felt uncomfortable with it.

Tai was talking to the doctor about giving birth as soon as she could. The doctor was telling her that he could give her a Caesarean Section to get the baby out. After she heard that, Tai told the doctor that she wanted to do that. I agreed with her about having an operation because I could see that she was too weak to have the baby the normal way. Plus we both wanted to see the baby as soon as we could!

Someone then came with a wheelchair to take Tai and myself up to a room. I decided myself that I would like her to be in a special room, a room that she would be alone and not with other patients. Tai got changed and then the nurse came in and told her that she could only eat until midnight. And after that she couldn’t eat or drink anymore until after she had the operation tomorrow.

After she heard that, she started to get scared about the operation. I told her that we both had already made a decision so we couldn’t change our minds now. Then I called everyone and told them about what had happened. I felt depressed that even though they listened no one said they would come and visit us. We would sleep here alone tonight.

In the morning I was very tired as I hadn’t slept much. Tai hadn’t eaten anything since last night. We thought she would go for the operation in the morning but we found out that as we are both only 18 we needed a parent’s signature for the operation. I was still angry with my parents for not coming to visit so we rang Tai’s mother. She agreed to come later in the morning.

A few hours later everything was ready. The nurse came and took Tai to the operating room. I was holding her hand very tightly and kept saying that she would be fine. I kissed her on her forehead before she went in. I wanted to go with her but they wouldn’t let me.

I couldn’t stand still or think about anything else right then. Tai’s mum came to me and told me that she was going to go back to work and asked me to call her later. I said OK and kept on walking up and down in front of the doors. I was starting to get worried that something might go wrong during the operation and I wouldn’t see Tai again.

This story was originally published in the Bangkok Post.