Rinoa was looking at the mirror for the fifth time that day. In just two months, soon the separation of flesh and skin would be gone, and she would be holding her bundle of joy in her arms, not her tummy. She couldn't wait any longer for the moment that she would be giving birth to a beautiful baby.
Her and Squall had tried so hard to make this happen. After so many treatments...so much pain...they finally had beat Hyne at his own game. They beat the odds. Rinoa was pregnant, and her and Squall were soon-to-be parents.
They often talked about it late at night. She would lay her dark hair upon Squall's bare chest resting in bed, while his chilly hand rested at the nape of her neck. She would get goosebumps at his mere touch. She would softly trace all of Squall's scars with her thin, nimble fingers and remember how much trouble they had endured to be at this point. She grimaced at her own light pink scars. They deserved this reward, more than anyone else perhaps.
Pregnancy test after pregnancy test would be taken, each showing the minus sign. Rinoa had a new heartbreak everytime. She would keep saying, "I just have a feeling, Squall. This is the one!" But each time, she would read the stick and toss it aside, resting her head in her hands, and try to be optimistic by saying, "Maybe next time." Squall once came into the bathroom and gently held her chin with his rough, work-worn hand after another negative response. He lifted her pale heart-shaped face and cradled it for a second, before seeing her glazed brown eyes, shining with agony. He said nothing, but dropped down onto his knees and kept looking into her eyes. She tried to force a smile, but it only made a line of tears break away from the corner of her eyes. She let out a soft sob and looked down at her legs in shame.
"I'm a failure, Squall." She whispered. He again said nothing, but brought her head to his chest. He held her there for a minute as she let go, crying all that she had built up the past couple of months. "I want it so bad, Squall. Why won't it happen for me?"
He stroked her hair tenderly, and wrapped his other arm around her small body. She felt no comfort, no solace. If she couldn't be a mother, she didn't want to be anything. It wasn't fair that it happened so easily for everyone else.
"Maybe I'm not meant to be a mother." She whispered into his soldier, and felt his adam's apple move.
"Don't say that. That means you don't want to try." Rinoa started crying even harder, but thankfully Squall stayed with her.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take." Squall held her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.
"Please, take just a little bit more. I...I want this real bad too, Rinoa." Squall's soft side made her sob just a little bit more. She cried on him for a little bit longer. Being so upset exhausted her, and soon after he carried her to bed.
She did take a little bit more. But it happened for them. And when they found out, Rinoa had never felt so elated in her life. She had surprised the doctors, upset the odds, and gave hope to herself. Soon, she would have the most perfect child in the world in her arms.
They had read all the books. They knew what to expect while they were expecting. She took prenatal vitamins, she did light work-outs, changed her entire diet. She went in for every ultrasound appointment and asked every question until she was an expert on the subject.
When she was five months pregnant, she and Squall painted the nursery. Rather than the traditional yellow, she painted the walls a light sage green. Squall had bought and assembled a white crib, and Rinoa laid an forest-green quilt on top. It was a patch-work quilt, with smiling animals on each square. There was a white rocking chair, a dresser filled with unisex outfits, and had you opened the closet you would have been overcome by an avalanche of stocked diapers. The baby monitor was in place, the binkies were bought, and the camera had film in it.
They had thought of all sorts of names for the little one. If it was a boy, they would name it Loire, after his father. If it was a girl, they would name it Julia after Rinoa's mother. They felt this was a fated decision, when they came to the conclusion. Squall said he'd much rather have a boy, but Rinoa didn't care. She just wanted a child, a piece of the world that was just hers. Something that was part of the man she fell madly in love with, and the part of herself that he had made her become.
And now, Rinoa was rubbing her stomach, waiting for her darling to playfully kick. She had been lost in thought for a moment, when she recalled something.
Her little one hadn't kicked all day.
She warned her heart not to pace in panic, for that could make things worse. She opened her mouth to say something about it to Squall, but quickly closed it. There was no reason to panic, it sometimes happens.
After a moment or two following her self-beration, she felt the panic rise up in her again. Anxiously, the young woman toyed with the rings on her chain necklace. In a timid manner, she spoke to Squall in a voice that was much too high to be her own.
"Squall?" The shrillness of worry pervasively made itself known. He seemed to be too attentive to his newspaper, so Rinoa called again. "Squall!"
"Yes?" His calm reply almost soothed her for an instant before she remembered the matter at hand.
"The baby hasn't kicked today." He lifted his eyes from his paper and pursed his lips together. They had both read it in the books. They both remembered. Squall dialed the doctor's number and went into the other room.
Rinoa caressed her belly softly, urging the little life in it to move, or adjust. She begged it to wake up and show that it was only sleeping. Soon she started to vocalize these requests, urgently whispering 'Wake up! Wake up!'
Squall walked back into the room with car keys in hands. Rinoa stood almost too quickly, feeling a little dizzy at the motion.
"What did the doctor say?"
"We're going for a quick visit. Nothing more. Come on, let's go to the car."
The hurriedness of his manner told her that this wasn't just a normal doctor's visit at all. He was always calm and collective. What was going on? Wordlessly, she climbed into the car. Squall, who had never sped in his life, was going twenty over the speed limit. After parking, he helped her out. Rinoa looked up at the building. If this was a normal doctor's visit, they would be at his office, not the hospital, right...?
Once they walked in, Dr. Kadowaki was waiting for them. She took Rinoa into the other room, and Rinoa watched the glowing lines the shades made on her belly. The warmth the sun was showing to her unborn child was enough to give her hope.
This was fate. Her child was fine.
After an ultrasound, Dr. Kadowaki still didn't say anything to her. This was when Rinoa couldn't stop her accelerated heart beat. She pressed the doctor for answers, but the old woman kept her mouth shut and then rushed into the other room. Rinoa balled her fists around the white sheets. Starting to feel sick, she closed her eyes as the sweat started to form on her forehead. A heat wave seemed to enter the room and take over her body. Dazed with despair, she strained her hearing after picking out Dr. Kadowaki's voice.
"the baby can't...have to induce..." was all she could make out. She wanted to yell, to scream, to tear her hair out. Squall soon appeared and said nothing to Rinoa.
"Squall, tell me what's wrong." She said, grabbing him by the collar with one arm and getting an IV put into another one.
"Rinoa...I love you." She pushed him away. With tears in her eyes and a fierceness in her voice, she shouted at him.
"Don't do this to me! Don't do this! I need to know, now! What's going on, what's wrong! What's wrong with the baby?"
"Rinoa...the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck. We're not getting a heart-beat." Rinoa quit thrashing and felt her blood run cold. She put her hand on her stomach again, as a burning sensation infested her body with pain. Rinoa's mouth felt dry and swollen. "We're not sure yet. Either way, they need to give the baby medical care. But they have to induce labor, now, to get the baby out. To make sure that it's okay, to take care of it. Please...please keep it together."
Rinoa felt her muscles relax. She was shaking heavily, huge convulsions all over her body as her emotional state ran haywire. She wanted to turn her entire body over to Hyne. She didn't understand why this was happening to her. She had purged herself of sin, she had prayed daily, she was far better a person than some of the evils she had met in her life.
"How can you ask me to keep it together, Squall?" She groaned into her pillow. His bottom lip quivered as she felt her heart swell. He his his eyes with his hand and she heard his soft moan.
"Because I don't know if I can." And for once, she was the one holding onto him, as he wept. Being the person he is, he had never let on that he cared so deeply for the prospect of a new family. And he tried his best not to let on that he was breaking down inside. So Rinoa took a deep breath, and held onto his hand as she tried to be strong enough for the both of them.
With Squall in the condition he was in, Rinoa tried her best not to let him know how bad the contractions were. She merely alerted the doctor that they started. Squall watched her with protective, red eyes. Every time she felt one, she squeezed his hand a little bit, and closed her eyes tightly. She was breathing so deeply that her chest was heaving up and down. Soon enough, she couldn't take the pain and let out a little yelp. Squall immediately looked at her with concern. She tried to smile at him, but it came out as a distorted grimace at best. After enough had been endured, they rushed her into delivery, Squall gallantly at the gurney side. Her knight was back, in his shining armor too.
Rinoa's contractions were awful, painful, and filled with yells. She was finding it difficult to breath, imagining the outcome of this. Too much to digest, to process. The white linoleum surrounded her in a sterile fear. But still, she pushed with Squall holding onto her hand. She was perspirating profusely, with her black hair making thick lines on her forehead and starting to wave at the ends. The tired ebony clashed with the snow white, a color to deep for the atmosphere of the room.
Squall watched Rinoa as she cried and yelled, only cooing encouragement in her ear. He had fully regained his composure, as the couple pursued what was supposed to be their greatest dream.
Then, the pressure was over. But Rinoa paused and listened. No sound. The nurse carried off the baby to another room, where Squall and Rinoa sat alone. She felt dizzy, exhausted, and hopeless. She knew what this meant.
The only cries heard in that room came from her.
The nurse came back, and the look on her face said enough.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Heartilly, we were too late. Would you like to see him?"
Rinoa stared in confusion, as if she were not ready to interpret the rest of the news.
"So...it was a boy." She sputtered out, starting more crying, as Squall held onto his lover with the most tender of care. The nurse brought the baby out, and Rinoa reached out her arms with the face of someone walking to the gallows.
She put him in her thin, pale arms the way that she knew she was supposed to. The way she knew she would had he made it. She looked down at him, and let her tears fall onto his pale, skin. They rolled down the chest that would never rise with the first breath of oxygen. She traced her finger along the crimson mouth that would never move. He was the most beautiful and most terrifying thing she would ever lay eyes on.
Her first-born, her never born. Her once unborn, her stillborn.
Her son.
She put her pinky in front of him like she had imagined she would, and waited for the grasp of recognization that was never to come. She cried as she gazed down at the eyelids, that would never open. She would never know whether her son had Squall's eyes or her own. A baby born sleeping.
Softly, she kissed his forehead, knowing he would never grow to kiss her back. She traced her hand down to his legs, that she knew would never walk. She touched his tiny hands, knowing they would never be hers to hold.
He had been in her so long, yet they had never met. And now, they never would. She took him to the hospital, but never got to take him home...
Her darling, her Loire. The only words she could force her dry mouth to make were, "He's beautiful."
Squall held her, but she no longer cried.
The next day, the sad couple left the hospital, without the baby. This was not what they expected when they were expecting. Rinoa rested her hand on her stomach. It was empty. Loire was gone.
She had no wish to enter the home that was built all for the prince who could not stay. But without the energy to protest, Squall helped her in the door. She laid on the couch. And for the first week, rarely could she find sleep.
Now when she looked at her mirror and saw the flatness above her waist, she detested herself.
She went into what would be a nursery, and it turned into a room that was just too green. Just another room. She looked at the embroidered pillow that would never cradle a head. She put away the monitors that would never pick up a sound. She removed the film from the camera, film that would never see her son's face. She never opened the closet, for she would never need to. She looked at the stupid forest-green quilt, with the stupid smiling animals. The stupid elephant, the stupid giraffe, the stupid lion. She hated everything about this room. But silently, without a word to Squall, a cry of lost hope, or a tear of misery, she draped a white sheet over the crib that would never keep safe her firstborn.
And on the couch, she laid. Hating light, sound, and touch. She hated life, for she had it and little Loire would not. All efforts in naught. Squall did her best to comfort her, but it was a vain attempt. Nothing could console her but her tiny baby boy.
You've never seen a coffin so small.
Walking away from the cortege, through a mourning veil of black, she looked at the world, and how bright it was around her. The sun was so bright that it seemed to radiate off of all it touched. A dandelion had it's seed picked up by the wind, and spun dancing into the air before landing on the sheer fabric of Rinoa's dress. Around her, life was still going on, though her child would not.
In later years, Rinoa and Squall did try to have another child, and after the anxiety and fear during the entire nine months, they did finally meet with success. However this time, it was a Julia.
Rinoa held the baby girl that was breathing and crying, and she witnessed it open her tiny little eyes. She saw her own. She cried as she held the baby close to her chest, and Squall whispered in Rinoa's ear, "She'll be strong, like you."
Rinoa didn't feel strong at the moment, but overwhelmed at the sight of her beloved, long-awaited child. She knew deep down in her heart, that Julia would be cared about more than she would ever know. By her mother, her father, and her big brother.
Rinoa thought, it must be nice to be born with a guardian angel.
In honor of Baby Loss Awareness.