What the Adriana Smith Baby Case Taught Me About ER Visits

It was 11:45 PM on a Tuesday, and I was standing at my kitchen island slapping shipping labels onto poly mailers for my Etsy shop while the baby monitor glowed next to my tape dispenser. I should have been sleeping, but instead, I was deep in a doom-scroll, aggressively refreshing my browser for any adriana smith baby update I could find. If you haven't been following this absolute nightmare of a story from earlier this year, I need you to grab your coffee and sit down, because I've been spinning about it for weeks and my husband is officially tired of hearing my conspiracy theories about hospital administrations.

I'm just gonna be real with you, the whole adriana smith baby situation is the kind of stuff that keeps mothers awake staring at the ceiling. A pregnant woman gets a terrible headache, gets sent home from the hospital, suffers fatal blood clots, and is declared brain-dead but kept on life support for months to incubate her child. It's deeply messed up, and while the entire internet is screaming about the bioethics and fetal personhood laws, I don't have the energy to argue with strangers about politics right now. I want to talk about the things that actually made my blood run cold as a mom of three.

That time the triage nurse told me to drink water

The detail I can't get out of my head is that Adriana's very first symptom was a blinding, unremitting headache. The hospital sent her home. They didn't do brain imaging, they didn't dig deeper, they just essentially told her to sleep it off.

When I read that, I physically dropped my phone on the counter. Because I remember being 34 weeks pregnant with my oldest—who, bless his heart, has been a walking cautionary tale since his conception—and developing a headache that felt like someone was driving a hot railroad spike through my left eye. I drove to the ER in our rural county, throwing up into a plastic grocery bag in the passenger seat while my mom drove. The triage nurse took my blood pressure, told me I was probably just dehydrated from the Texas heat, and handed me a tiny paper cup of water with a Tylenol.

My grandma always used to say that doctors look right through women when we talk, but my mom wasn't having it. She basically threatened to park her Ford F-150 inside the emergency room lobby if they didn't run a full preeclampsia panel and get a doctor in there immediately. My OB told me later that severe headaches in pregnancy can be massive red flags for blood clots or stroke risks, or whatever the exact neurological term is, because your blood volume is so crazy when you're pregnant.

We got lucky, but I think about how my doctor mentioned that the statistics for maternal mortality are just horrific, especially for Black women, who are supposedly three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women. It all stems from this gross structural bias where their pain is constantly diminished. If you're pregnant and your head is splitting open and your vision is blurry, you've to plant your feet in that emergency room and refuse to leave until they run the scans, even if they roll their eyes at you.

When a micro-preemie enters the world

When the news broke about the adriana smith baby born at roughly 25 weeks via emergency C-section, my heart just sank into my fuzzy slippers. Little Chance weighed 1 pound 13 ounces. I remember seeing an adriana smith baby photo floating around on a news site, and he was just swimming in tubes and wires, looking so unimaginably fragile.

My pediatrician explained to me once that when babies are born that incredibly early—they call it extremely preterm—their little lungs and brains are basically just tissue paper trying to do a job they aren't built for yet. They don't just need a little extra oxygen; they need this massive, prolonged intervention in the NICU just to remember to breathe and process food.

My oldest only spent a few days under the bilirubin lights, but I remember how stiff and scratchy the hospital-provided clothes were around all those monitor wires. If you've a friend going through a NICU journey, or if you're navigating one yourself, you've to get clothes that actually work with the medical equipment without irritating their paper-thin skin. I ended up buying the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao for my second kid, and I swear by it now. It's got this perfect stretchy neckline and it's made of 95% organic cotton, so it's ridiculously soft. You can stretch it right over IV lines and monitor cords without having to contort a tiny baby into weird positions. It's one of those things you don't realize you desperately need until you're trying to dress a baby who's attached to a wall monitor.

The legal nightmare that made me call a lawyer

Okay, here's where I'm going to lose my absolute mind for a minute. The hospital kept Adriana on life support against her family's wishes. They literally bypassed the people who loved her most. But what makes me want to scream into a pillow is what happened to the dad.

Adrian Harden, the adriana smith baby father, wasn't legally married to Adriana. Because of that, the hospital essentially locked him out of the decision-making process. The state was going to take his newborn son and put him into encourage care. Let me repeat that: this man's partner died tragically, his son was fighting for his life in a plastic box, and the hospital told him he had no legal rights to his own flesh and blood.

He had to hire a lawyer and sue the state for custody of his own child just to keep Chance out of the system. I can't fathom the level of administrative cruelty it takes to look at a grieving father in a NICU and hand him a legal summons instead of a permission slip to hold his baby.

My husband and I've been together since college. We have three kids. Do you want to know how much legal paperwork we had in place before this week? Zero. None. We just assumed that because our names are on the birth certificates and we share a checking account, everything would magically sort itself out in an emergency. This case completely shattered that delusion for me.

If you're co-parenting and you aren't married, or honestly even if you're, you've to drag your partner to a lawyer and sign those morbid Medical Power of Attorney and advance directive papers before you think you need them. Don't let a hospital board in a boardroom somewhere decide what happens to your family or where your kids go if the worst happens.

Breakfast epiphanies and sensory distractions

The morning after my late-night deep dive, I was sitting at the breakfast table looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. My husband was pouring coffee, and our youngest was aggressively gnawing on this Panda Teether we got a while back. I'll be honest, the teether is just okay. The silicone is easy enough to wash when it inevitably gets chucked onto the dog bed, but my kid honestly prefers chewing on my cold metal car keys anyway. Still, it keeps him from screaming for about ten minutes while I scramble eggs, so I let him have at it.

I looked at my husband, slid a piece of toast across the table, and said, "We're calling a family lawyer today." He thought I was being dramatic, as usual, until I read him the details about the custody battle.

It's weird how a tragedy happening to a stranger halfway across the country can completely shift your perspective on your own life. You spend so much time worrying about the little things—like whether you're doing enough tummy time or if you should buy one of those aesthetic wooden Rainbow Play Gym Sets to help their visual tracking (which, by the way, is actually pretty great for keeping them occupied so you can fold a single load of laundry in peace). But we completely ignore the big, terrifying administrative things because they're uncomfortable to talk about.

We did end up calling a lawyer in the next town over. It cost us a few hundred bucks and a very depressing Tuesday afternoon in a stuffy office, but we got our advance directives signed. I left feeling this bizarre mix of heavy and relieved.

Take a breather from the heavy stuff and browse something a little happier. Check out Kianao's organic baby clothes collection for some genuinely soft, practical pieces that honestly hold up in the wash.

Honoring the moms who aren't here

I think a lot about how little Chance is going to grow up. He's going to hit all his milestones, he's going to learn to walk and talk, and he's going to do it all with his dad. But he's going to have to learn about his mother through stories and pictures.

It makes me realize how important it's to leave a trail of ourselves for our kids. My grandma used to keep a cedar box full of letters and little trinkets, and I used to think it was just clutter. Now I get it. If you're looking for a way to preserve those memories, whether it's for your own kids or for a family navigating a loss, finding a sustainable keepsake box or making a dedicated memory book isn't just a craft project. It's an anchor.

I don't have a neat, tidy bow to tie on this story. Parenting is messy, the medical system is wildly flawed, and sometimes terrible things happen to people who absolutely don't deserve it. All we can do is advocate like hell for ourselves in the doctor's office, get our paperwork in order, and hold our babies a little tighter when the news gets too dark.

If you're sitting here realizing your own legal house is a mess, please, make the phone call today. And while you're waiting on hold with the lawyer, you can explore our nursery essentials to find something comforting for the little ones you're working so hard to protect.

The messy questions we're all secretly Googling

What exactly is an advance directive and do I really need one if I'm young?

An advance directive is basically a legal permission slip that tells doctors exactly what you want to happen if you're ever in a state where you can't speak for yourself. And yes, you absolutely need one, even if you run marathons and eat organic kale every day. The Adriana Smith case proved that hospitals have their own legal protocols, and if you don't have your wishes in writing, a random committee of hospital administrators might end up making life-or-death decisions for you instead of your family.

How do I advocate for myself in the ER if doctors won't listen?

You have to become the most annoying person in the room. I mean it. If you're pregnant or postpartum and you've a symptom like a severe headache, vision changes, or chest pain, don't let them dismiss you with Tylenol. Ask them explicitly to note in your chart that they're refusing to run a preeclampsia panel or a CT scan. Usually, the second you ask them to document their refusal to test you, they miraculously find the time to order the bloodwork. Bring your loudest, most stubborn friend or partner with you.

If my partner and I aren't married, what paperwork do we need for our baby?

I'm not a lawyer, but from what our attorney told us, you need to establish legal paternity immediately. In a lot of states, if you aren't married when the baby is born, the father doesn't automatically have presumed legal rights if the mother passes away or is incapacitated, which is exactly why Adrian Harden had to sue. You need a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity form, and you probably need to draft legal guardianship contingencies. Spend the money and talk to a family lawyer in your county.

What's the best clothing for a baby in the NICU?

You want things that wrap or snap fully open. Avoid anything that has to be pulled tightly over their head, because they're usually hooked up to a tangle of wires, feeding tubes, and monitors. Soft, breathable fabrics like organic cotton are non-negotiable because preemie skin is incredibly fragile and synthetic dyes can cause rashes. Look for stretchy, side-snap bodysuits or specialized NICU wrap shirts.