Saimi’s story likely began while we were on a bikepacking trip from Lieksa to Kuusamo with Elli, her mother, in August 2019. At the time, we had no idea, and the pregnancy came as a complete surprise when it was already in its third month. Through the autumn and winter, everything went smoothly, with no signs of anything unusual or any complications. All the medical check-ups and ultrasound scans looked normal. Based on the ultrasound, the due date was set for May 10, 2020.
Earlier, we had booked flights to Thailand for a month-long trip starting in December, planning to work remotely and spend some time on holiday. Once we found out about the pregnancy, we of course gave a lot of thought to whether we should go at all. In the end, we decided to go, as several experts reassured us that travelling itself did not pose a significant risk. In December, we flew to Bangkok and continued north by train. We spent most of our time in the city of Chiang Mai and in the small, peaceful village of Chiang Dao. On our way back south to Bangkok, we stopped for a day in Lopburi, where we visited the so-called monkey temple to see rhesus macaques. At the temple, monkeys climbed all over me and clung to my clothes, and when I tried to gently shoo them away, one of them bit my finger. As soon as we returned to Finland in early January, I decided to get a rabies vaccination just to be safe, since it had been a bite from a wild animal. At the time, I didn’t know it yet, but this incident would later cause some confusion and a bit of a headache.
At the end of January 2020, we went to Barcelona to attend the PhD defence of Elli’s colleague, Rong. We had previously lived in Barcelona from February 2018 to February 2019, after we had both received research grants from Finland. During that time, we worked as visiting researchers, I at Pompeu Fabra University and Elli at the CRAG research institute in the neighbouring town of Cerdanyola del Vallès. This time, we were there just for a long weekend, from Friday to Tuesday. On Sunday, we spent hours walking around the city and revisiting our favourite places, including one of our favourite restaurants, La Carassa in El Born. There were no signs of anything unusual with the pregnancy or in Elli’s condition. Then, in the middle of the following night, labour began completely without warning.
We were staying in an apartment hotel on Carrer de Nàpols, and fortunately there was a concierge on duty around the clock who called an ambulance for us. The ambulance arrived quickly, and the paramedics calmly assessed the situation before we set off. The ride to the new Sant Pau Hospital (Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau), a few kilometres away, felt unbearably long. In Barcelona, ambulances often drive with lights flashing and sirens on, but slowly and very cautiously. At the hospital, it was confirmed that labour had begun, and the goal now was simply to delay the birth for as long as possible. The pregnancy was only at week 25, so at that stage every additional day was extremely valuable and improved the chances of our baby’s survival and of being born healthy.
Elli was admitted to the hospital and instructed to remain on bed rest. After a day or two of close monitoring, she was moved to a regular ward. We shared the room with a young Catalan couple who seemed to be in a similar situation and clearly feared losing their baby as well. For us, things still looked relatively good given the circumstances, and Elli was doing well. Elli’s former research group leader, Amparo, came to visit, as did her colleague Rong, who had just defended her PhD and whose defence we had ultimately missed. Rong came with another student, and they brought us a huge batch of Chinese dumplings, which tasted absolutely amazing. Maybe it was partly due to the stressful situation and the somewhat bland hospital food at the time, but in my mind those dumplings are still the best I’ve ever had.
I stayed at the hospital, trying to sleep in a chair next to Elli’s bed, with fairly little success. At that point, it was already clear that we would be staying in Barcelona for quite some time. Elli wouldn’t be able to get out of bed before the birth, and after the baby was born, travelling with a newborn wouldn’t be an option for quite a while. I arranged an Airbnb apartment for us about a kilometre from the hospital. It was located in our old neighbourhood, in the Guinardó area, right next to one of my favourite places, Parc de Guinardó. Once we had the apartment, I went to check out of the hotel and took our luggage to the new apartment. Otherwise, I spent all my time at the hospital.
Before moving to Barcelona, in the autumn of 2017, we took two intensive Spanish courses at the Open University of Helsinki, where we learned the basics of Spanish. After the courses ended in December, we travelled to Cuba for a holiday, where our language skills were put to the test, as Cuban Spanish differs quite a bit from the Spanish spoken in Spain. We managed well, though, and spent six weeks travelling around the island, from Havana to the mountains of Sierra Maestra and back. After moving to Barcelona we continued studying Spanish at a local language school, but stopped quite soon, as the teaching methods felt unpleasant and the location wasn’t very convenient for daily life. Ironically, our Spanish – or at least mine – actually got rusty during that year in Barcelona. Anyway, when we ended up at Sant Pau Hospital in January 2020, it was fortunate that we spoke at least some Spanish, as very few people at the hospital spoke English – or were willing to, even if they could. In fact, the hospital operated primarily in Catalan, so all official documents and written instructions were given to us in Catalan. In practice, though, almost everyone spoke Spanish with us, and a few spoke English.
On the ward at Sant Pau, Elli remained in bed, and at first the nurses helped her with things like using a bedpan. However, probably on the second day, Elli asked a nurse for help but was told she could go to the bathroom on her own. We tried to ask whether the doctor had instructed that Elli should remain in bed, but we never received a clear answer. On Thursday, the fourth day in hospital, labour started again, and Elli was moved back under close monitoring to a small private room. We were asked whether we wanted the baby to be delivered vaginally or by a caesarean section. We chose a caesarean section, as the doctors said it would be the safer option given how premature the baby was.
We hadn’t been there for long when the doctors said it was time, and Elli was quickly taken to the operating room, where I wasn’t allowed to go with her. I had never been as scared and distressed as I was in those moments, crouching on the floor of an empty, dimly lit room. I still find myself in tears just thinking about it. I remember sending a message to a close friend of mine, telling him that we were in a very difficult situation. He replied immediately and sent me words of support, which helped me get through the next few minutes. He also told me to call him if I wanted to, but I was so tearful that I couldn’t speak.
I don’t know how long I was alone in that room. Probably not long, maybe ten or twenty minutes. At that moment, and in the days that followed, I noticed how time seems to both compress and stretch in a deep crisis: looking back, what felt like a full day had been only a few hours, and a single day seemed to hold an entire week. At some point, a nurse came into the room. She handed me hospital clothes and asked me to put them on quickly. She also gave me a piece of paper and a pen and told me to write down our child’s name.
We had already more or less settled on first names. We had chosen the name Saimi a few months earlier, after coming across it in a 50th or 60th wedding anniversary notice in Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper, and we both liked the name immediately. While we were in the hospital, we also talked about Aina as a possible second name. We had come across it somewhere in Barcelona and felt drawn to it. We also felt it was a meaningful name given the situation, as it is both an old Finnish name (meaning “always”) and, as I understood it, also a Catalan girl’s name. However, we hadn’t discussed the surname at all.
In that moment, I didn’t have time to think any further about the name. I pulled on the hospital clothes as quickly as I could, trying to make sense of what was happening. I was afraid I was about to lose both my child and my partner. I scribbled our child’s name on a piece of paper with a trembling hand and ended up choosing her mother’s surname. I handed the note to the nurse and we hurried off to the operating room.