Trigger warning: Contains fictional content relating to the death of a newborn
Running my fingers gently through the fronds of auburn curls, I marveled at her perfection. Ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes... too tiny. I held her little hands in mine as the early morning sun filtered through the window shades and fell softly across her face. She had the cutest button nose and cherry-red lips. It was her lips that surprised me the most; their deep hue lay in stark contrast to her pale complexion. Long dark lashes swept the still cheeks of my beautiful sleeping angel. A silent tear splashed against my own. I hugged her fragile body as tightly as I dared and closed my eyes. Pushing back on the rocker, I set it in motion. I should have been nursing my baby that day, but instead, I was nursing myself.
That slow rhythm, back and forth, became a constant in my life but always proved an inadequate comfort for a broken heart.
They say that some wounds never truly heal. Somehow we manage to navigate our way through the pain, but we find it impossible to get over it. And so it was with Maisy. Yes, she has a name. From the moment I discovered I was pregnant, she had a name.
When the pink line appeared on the home pregnancy test all those years ago, nobody had been more overjoyed than Shaun. We had been trying for a baby for some time, and this final attempt at becoming parents was our last hurrah. The cost was just too prohibitive, and the risks associated with having children later in life were well documented.
His disbelief quickly turned to irrepressible excitement. "I'm gonna be a Dad!"
I giggled as he swept me off my feet and twirled me around the living room, to the sweet sounds of Marvin Gaye on the radio. We spun til we were dizzy and collapsed in a heap of giddy unrestraint on the sofa. "What's even more wonderful... is that you're going to be a Mom!" Pausing, he grinned... "And we'll call him Teddy, after my dad."
I feigned a scowl. "And if she's a girl?" Shaun ducked the cushion thrown in his direction, allowing it to fall beside him. Then, retrieving it, he leaned in and placed it in the hollow of my back before laying his head gently on my tummy... "If she's a girl, we'll call her Maisy. And I know I don't get a look-see in on that name."
"I'm afraid the news isn't quite what we had hoped for..." Dr. Langston opened my file as I sat down in the chair opposite him. In his spacious office in Stanford, he ran his eyes over my test results as if willing the numbers, and resulting diagnosis to change.
"How long do I have, Doc?" The words escaped my lips before I could check myself. But I was a realist, after all. I would rather rip off the bandaid, and face the truth than live in denial.
I stared at my hands; the threads holding my life together were threatening to give way.
This post is in response to the prompt: thread for Week 1 of the Dreemport/Scholar and Scribe collaboration.
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