This is quite a strange idea and I really don't have a clue where it came from. I'm also not sure what I really think of it, but I hope that it's ok. Major thanks to MirrorSparkles1234 for reading through this for me :-)
A baby. An infant. The youngest members of our species. These are defenceless creatures totally reliant on us, the adults, to provide their care. From the moment they are conceived they are taking from us, stealing the nutrients from our diets in order for them to thrive leaving us we what is left. They drain our energy, change our body shape and alter our very identity. They change us in to mummy, to daddy taking away our individual identity by making us somebody's parent. We are defined solely by that in many circles and yet it doesn't seem to faze us.
In spite of what these tiny creatures take from us, we love them. They are incapable of giving much back and yet we give them everything. Perhaps though if they were capable of more, we would force them to do it. By giving us these defenceless, rather useless little beings we are forced to take responsibility. Without us, they would fail to thrive, eventually failing even to survive.
Maybe that is why they are cute. These innocent beings with wide alert eyes so soon after birth that seem to watch you, that seem to talk to you. "Love me" those little eyes beg of you, "look after me, care for me, love me," they plead it over and over. As you place that child to your breast, and allow her to suckle you watch each other. Her finger may curl around yours, as your eyes lock in this intimate moment where all the matters is the two of you. You are all this child needs.
It is that you think that triggers the mothering instinct. Those moments of bonding in those first few hours of your child's life. The hours that were stolen from you. You cannot get back those hours that you should have shared with your newly born infant. So now you have to play catch up. You have to fight to discover this instinct that everyone seems to think comes naturally to you. You feel like you are pretending a lot of the time, and yet you feel emotion towards the baby so you know that all is not lost.
She is stirring now against you. She is no longer a newborn, though she is still very much a baby. You cannot quite decide at what point she will become a child, perhaps she never will to you. She will always be your baby girl. In so many ways you would like to keep her this way. Her body molding so easily against yours, nestling in to the crook of your arm. You can hold her tightly too you, and smell that baby smell that you have come to love, to crave. You miss it when she is not in your arms. When she is not with you and you seem to be separated far too often.
Yet it is you she needs. She settles in your arms, and that brings a smile to your lips. To know that you can be the one to bring peace to this tiny person, to make her feel safe and secure. It lets you know that she loves you, just as much as you love her.
But you are curious to see what she will become. You cannot wait to see the things that she will do, to be there for those first moments. You deserve to be there for them. Perhaps it will be your name she says first, that would be most fitting of course. And to watch her take her first faltering steps, the steps that will bring her in to your arms, to hold her, to praise her.
She stirs again. She might be close to crying. It is getting close to the time of her next feed. If you had your way she wouldn't be in this feeding schedule, but you understand. It is more convenient this way. It was brought about in this early weeks when she was not truly yours, when she was shared with the neonatal staff. But now you cannot break the routine.
You look down at her. She has changed so much since her days in neonatal. Since those early days of her life. She is filling out now, becoming chunkier. It is the result of good feeding, and being well cared for. She is looking like a healthy baby, a happy baby and not the sickly baby she once was. She is perfect. Beautiful.
But you are faced with losing her, just as you have faced losing her before. Only this time it is different. You aren't sure it would have hurt so much before. You knew she was coming in to your life, you weren't sure how things would have been without her coming but you didn't know then how losing her would affect you. But now it is so different. You aren't sure you can face the idea of life without her, and you don't know how she will cope without you either.
You shouldn't be faced with this. Neither of you should. You hold her body slightly more tightly to yours as though that will keep you from losing her. As though you can hold her forever more. You know better though. You cannot keep lying to yourself. You know the time is going to come.
That was why you bought her up here. You came away from the others because you needed the time alone with her. So you look out over the skyline. You point things out to her, places that you have been and the places you had hoped to go. Perhaps you tell her, you will get to go there anyway. They will take her.
You try to tell yourself it's for the best. As you try to stop the tears building in your eyes, you try to tell that to her too. You know the sort of life that she will have with them, and while it is not the life that you would have given her, you are not certain you can say it's a bad life.
She will still be loved. How could anyone not love her, and yet can they love her as you do? You have seen them, watched them. You know them. That worries you slightly. You look back down at the baby. She is watching you, with her big eyes.
You think she is begging you. She is begging you not to leave her and yet what choice do you have. You cannot stay, and you cannot take her with you. And yet those eyes beg you. She is asking with every inch of her tiny being. You swallow hard, and lower your head to place a kiss against her forehead.
You can inhale the scent of her, that baby smell. You hear her snuffle slightly as though she is breathing you in too. Committing you to memory just as you are committing her. Does she know as you do that the end is coming? You cannot quite bear the thought of that. She should be protected from all of this.
She is the innocent one and yet it is her who will lose out. What if all of this goes wrong a few weeks down the line? There is such a risk of that, and yet you know. You know that your chance is gone, and that you cannot get it back. She is the one who stands to gain but she stands to lose just as much.
Somewhere below you, you hear it. The sound of a Scottish voice calling your name. You are surprised he has given you this long before he had tracked you down to here. He shouts it over and over. You think that maybe you should respond, but your throat seems to have closed over. You are no longer sure how you are even breathing.
Still he screams your name, now adding in the name of the baby as though somehow she will respond to him. You hold her more tightly against you, as though you can muffle any sound she will make. You know there is no point really, from the place you are he is unlikely to hear her. But it doesn't matter. Your mind is in another place right now. You aren't quite thinking straight.
You move. You know time is growing short, only he seems to sense the movement and he lets you know that. You know it is only a matter of time before he will come up here and join you. He'll take the baby from your arms, and you won't get the say goodbye to her. Only now that time grows closer you don't know that you can do that. You don't want to do it.
You stand up. You'll move further back from the edge so he cannot see you. Maybe if you move quick enough you can get away, you can move to somewhere else. You hear his shouts change, his desperation. Does he not realise that you are desperate too? You don't think he can. You feel the baby in your arms. You feel her and you want never to lose the weight of her against you.
Something rolls under your foot and you grip the bundle tighter. He screams and you do not quite understand why, and then you realise. You realise that there is no longer a firm foundation under your foot. You realise there is nothing under you at all.
Before your body has even adjusted to no longer being in freefall he is there, prising at your arms. Maybe they are already growing flaccid, making it easier for him not that you are really fighting against it now. You have always thought that in this moment they would be pleading with you to stay, only nobody is doing that here. Nor do they make any attempts at working on your body in the hopes of keeping you here.
As your eyes start to become fixed, you see a face appear in your line of vision. Her eyes flash as they look down at you. You could name every emotion in her face – each of those ugly, truthful emotions is directed solely at you – but you no longer have the time. In truth you no longer really care either.
You can feel him pulling to free the bundle in your arms. You can hear the sounds that are being made, sounds that lead you to believe that is not only him there. But the sounds are becoming ever more distant though you do not know if that's because they are leaving you, or because you are leaving them. It's more likely the latter, because you are sure you can still feel the bundle warm against you, and the edges of your lips twist up slightly.
Only you are slipping further away. The face that is in front of you blurs all the more. Would they have called it yet? They have given up anyway. Now they have removed what they want. The cradle of your arms is now flat against you, no longer holding your previous cargo.
Only she was never yours. You never had a baby at all.