Author's note: I've wanted to write this story for quite some time, and I'm glad that, at ten-forty in the morning, I'm finally getting started on it!
I thank celrock for the suggestion that I refer back to the Rugrats episode, "Mother's Day," when Tommy discussed his birth and how he was placed in an incubator, if you remember.
I decided to have Tommy, in this one-shot taking place from his perspective, explain how his birth went, and how he felt the full time.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rugrats. Rugrats belongs to Klasky Csupo.
Strength of Tommy
Tommy's POV
Even though I'm a lot older now, I still remember the day that I was born.
I gotta admit that it was real scary when I came out. There were these bright, shiny, lights everywhere, and it was really hurting my eyes, and along with that, I was real cold and I didn't know what to do.
I wasn't breathing too well, either. I was trying my best to, but it was sorta hard with everything that was going on.
I never even really got to see my mommy or daddy before the nurse pulled me out of the room. There were a bunch of people all around me, and I felt even more scared.
I didn't know any of these people, and they all looked so new to me. I didn't know where they were taking me, either, but I had a feeling that I wouldn't like it.
They put me in a fish tank, where I was hooked up to a bunch of wires. I didn't really know what was going on, or why I was in a fish tank. I could breathe a little better, I guess, but I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking about the lady that I had seen. I didn't know that she was my mommy yet, but I didn't really feel that scared of her.
She was just different. I don't know how, but I almost feel like a part of me knew that she was my mommy already.
I would've cried cause of how much I wanted to see her, but being stuck in that old fish tank, I couldn't even do that. It still felt a little weird breathing and I guess you could say that I didn't really know how to cry yet. Obviously, I started crying a lot when I finally got to go home, but I think that my mommy once said something about how I just wasn't ready or something.
I wanted to get out of there. I saw other babies' mommies and daddies taking them home, hugging them, smiling at them, and it sure didn't take me long to realize that I was all alone. I wanted someone to hug me and smile at me, but all I had for now was the nurses, and they seemed to care about me just as much as they did the other babies (which, for the record, was very little.) They didn't even seem happy to be doing their job. I can't say that I'd be too happy putting babies in fish tanks all day, either, though.
I can barely explain just how happy I felt when I saw the same lady from earlier walking over to me. She was my mommy.
She was smiling at me when she walked over, giving me a similar smile to the one that the other mommies gave to their babies. She slid her arm through one of the holes of the fish tank and held my hand. I felt strong for the first time since I'd been in that hospital, and realized that my mommy loved me just as much as any other mommy at that hospital loved her baby. It felt good to know that, even if I was in a fish tank, there was somebody out there who loved me.
And, well, that's the story of the firstest time that I felt strong.