A/N: Mother's Day is Sunday, and my heart is just full of Mama Isobel feels. I need another writing project like a hole in the head, but this wouldn't let me be.

This is, simply put, speculation on what Isobel might have been thinking in the earliest days of mothering Matthew. It follows my headcanon that she and Reginald suffered two losses before he was born.

I promise I will return to Chelsie-ing now. Thanks for putting up with me!

***Unbeta'ed, so please forgive any errors.

xx,

~ejb~

I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear

So through darkness and good times
I knew I'd make it through
And the world thought I had it all
But I was waiting for you

-Céline Dion, "A New Day Has Come"

oOo

It has been one week. For seven days and seven nights, she has been a mother. She is a different woman now, or perhaps it's that she is, indeed, a woman now, for the first time in her twenty-three years. The carrying and birthing and nurturing of a new life does have the effect of making one leave behind the last clinging vestiges of childishness.

She had known what to expect from childbirth, as much as one can know about such a thing without experiencing it for herself. She had delivered enough babies, both alongside her physician husband, father, and brother and unassisted, to be intimately acquainted with the process. Additionally, she possessed firsthand knowledge of what happens when all does not go according to plan. As a new bride at the tender age of nineteen she had lost her first pregnancy, and nearly her own life along with it. And if that were not enough, she'd suffered another miscarriage the following year. To be young and healthy, yet unable to make her body do what women had been doing for thousands upon thousands of years was heart-rending. Indeed, to be so very young and already feel diminished in her capacity to fulfill her role as a woman … it had taken its toll upon her sense of worth, upon her faith, upon her marriage.

But they'd got through it together, she and Reginald, and had come out stronger; even more deeply in love with one another. His steady presence, his quiet assurances that she was all woman, the only woman he wanted, had gone miles toward her healing. And they'd found the courage to try again. If it hadn't worked out, they'd decided to take it as a sign that perhaps they were meant for medical missions, and with the ongoing unrest in the Transvaal they'd felt a pull to go and lend support - both medical and moral - to the Uitlanders. In fact, they'd been ready to leave with a group of physicians from the northwest and Wales when she'd fallen pregnant for a third time. Incredulous, they had remained in Manchester, putting the pregnancy in God's hands. Still, the first few months were harrowing, and they dared not set their hopes too high until Isobel was five months gone, well past the point of their previous losses.

She'll never forget the first quickening. They had just begun to breathe a sigh of relief, to start thinking not just in terms of Isobel's pregnancy but of their family. She was working again, for all three doctors had deemed it safe, and at the end of her shift one afternoon she'd sat down to complete a stack of patient charts when she felt it: a sensation like bubbles bursting just above her navel. She pressed a hand to the spot but could feel nothing from the outside. She shifted in her chair and felt it again, but only inside. She'd called down the corridor for Reginald and he'd come to her, but she was dismayed when he couldn't feel what she felt. But one morning a week later as they'd lain in bed together, their hands joined where the baby lay, they'd both felt a tiny kick. Isobel had laughed as Reginald rucked up the hem of her nightgown and pressed kisses all over her abdomen.

She had loved pregnancy and the metamorphosis her body undertook. She supposed it helped that she and Reginald had a background in medicine and, as such, saw the human body as a marvel. He'd certainly treated hers like one. She hadn't thought she would ever tire of his hands holding her low around her waist, of the look in his eyes when he appraised her bare form in its ever-changing glory.

They'd had the luxury of delivering at home, with only she and he and her mother present. She reflects now that attending the births of others' babies is excellent learning experience, but one never truly knows what it is to labor and birth a child until one does it for herself. Contractions were an altogether different phenomenon than she'd thought they would be. She had always supposed she'd have some measure of control over them, but the reality was that her body worked of its own volition. When she'd given in and let it happen she found it easier to anticipate the rhythm of it all. Squeeze … pain … exhale … squeeze … pain peaking … release … release … relax … inhale. It was a cycle that repeated, waxing and waning in both frequency and intensity, for over twenty-four hours. She'd walked the corridor when progress slowed, leaning on her mother for support, and rocked on her hands and knees when lying still was unbearable.

Pushing had been surprising. She had always heard that a laboring mother reaches a point when her body cannot help but push. She'd seen it happen countless times. Those deliveries had always been the ones that proceeded far more smoothly than the ones in which the mother was directed to push. But, she'd wondered, how will I know? Just as her womb had known how and when to contract without her directing it, she had felt a shift, a realignment of sorts, and then her body had simply begun to bear down of its own accord. Cooperating with it had been the harder task, one she found agonizing and exhausting. It seemed endless; fruitless. Hour after excruciating hour and no baby. Her mother held her as she retched at the peak of each contraction and bore down despite her readiness to give up and finally, after more than three hours, she felt a slipping sensation, as if she'd lost half her body, and then relief like a great, heaving sigh.

And suddenly there she'd been, face-to-face with this being that her body had just expelled. Her baby, her son lay on her chest in all his newborn glory. Her hands were on him immediately, rubbing his tiny body all over. She'd held her breath as she waited for him to draw his first. And then he'd begun to wail and she, who had mastered countless piano concertos as a girl, who'd always sung in the church choir, had never heard a sound so sweet. In that moment she had been pure emotion, laughing as she sobbed, exhausted but exhilarated. She'd done it. They'd done it. Her baby was here at long last, in the flesh, in her arms.

She's never been much of a crier, but motherhood has made her one. She and Reginald had wept in one another's arms after delivery. She was safe; alive, intact, and so was their son. After all the dark, desperate days of loss, their arms and hearts were full at last. She cries when the baby cries. She's heard that's what new mothers do, that it's part and parcel of her body's adjusting to no longer being pregnant. She cries from sheer exhaustion. It's not that mothering is difficult, certainly not after only a week. It's just so very intense. She has never felt happier, or more overwhelmed, in all her life, and the fact that she can feel warring emotions in concert with one another is yet more overpowering still.

She's been out of bed from the start. Reginald is with her all night and her mother all day, so it's not as if she needs to exert herself much, but she feels better, more like herself, when she gets up and moves around, attends to her own personal needs. She feels stronger than she supposed she would, stronger than she should on so very little sleep. She thinks she is beginning to understand her mother's words to her just after delivery: Mothers are made one day at a time.

oOo

It's either late or very early, and the baby is rousing. How attuned she has already become to the sounds he makes! She hears him snuffling and knows it's best to fetch him now before he begins to cry in earnest.

Reginald stirs beside her. "I'll change him and bring him to you," he says, and she nods gratefully. What delight she has taken in watching her husband become a father! She should have figured that, as a physician, he would be very attentive to his son, but it's truly a thing of beauty to behold. She watches him move about the darkened room with the baby in his arms, murmuring softly to him, and her heart swells with love so great she feels unable to contain it.

And it's not only the baby to whom he's been attentive. His hours are long, but when he comes home he kisses her, lies with her, holds her close. Beautiful is the last thing she feels - bedraggled and shapeless are closer to the truth - but he insists that she is breathtaking, that he's never loved her more.

He brings their son to her, lays him in her arms, and drops a kiss on the crown of her head. He gets back into bed, reclines against the headboard and draws her close. She glances over her shoulder at him as she leans back against his chest. "Are you sure?" she asks. "You've got to be up in a couple of hours."

"Come here, precious," he replies, helping her to get settled. "Comfortable?"

"Oh, yes, most definitely." She smiles at him as she unbuttons her nightgown, settling the baby at her breast. She gasps as his little mouth latches on.

"All right?" Reginald whispers, rubbing her shoulders.

She nods. "It's just … surprising. Not painful anymore." For the first couple of days, nursing had been dreadful. Her nipples were painfully raw and Matthew seemed frustrated and impatient. Finally, on the third day, her milk had come in and then … Then she had discovered the sacred bond between a nursing mother and child. It was magical, blissful. For the first time in her life she'd felt like a woman, as if she had at last come into the fullness of femininity. It was gratifying, mystifying and altogether humbling that she had the ability to nourish and comfort her son in this way. And to do so while lying in the arms of her husband … this was intimacy the likes of which she never knew existed. She'd felt beautiful in those moments. She'd felt complete.

And here, in the middle of the night, in the arms of her love with their son at her breast, she feels unspeakable joy. It has not ceased to amaze her that her heart is capable of so much love for someone who has done nothing to earn it. She thinks she finally understands the unconditional love of God the Father, and it makes her weep with gratitude. She is loved, not because of her actions, her intellect, her looks or her birthright. She is simply loved because she is His. And now she loves, not because Matthew can give her anything. On the contrary, he demands everything from her. But she gives it all without a thought for herself. There is something innate in her being that makes her feel whole when she answers his cries, when she meets his needs. She simply loves him because he is hers.

She strokes his downy head, marveling at the softness of his hair and the sweet smell of his skin. She hums softly as she wonders about the tiny being in her arms. Who will you be, my Matthew, my son? Will you be a doctor like your daddy and uncle and granddad, or will you choose another path? Will you share my love of music, or your gran's passion for great literature? Will you marry one day and have children of your own?

Do you know how much we love you … how much I love you; how long I waited to hold you in my arms? Do you know that you are perfect, my little one, just as you are? If you only learn one thing from me, darling, I pray that it is this: you are enough. Just as you are. You have already brought so much joy into this world, sweet boy. I do not know what I've done to deserve the gift of mothering you, but I thank God for the privilege. I fear I am still, myself, a child in so many ways, but I will always do my very best by you, and when I falter … when I fail, know that your Father in heaven will provide. We've a lot to learn, you and I, but we'll get there together. We'll get there in time.

He has finished nursing, and she smiles as his rosebud mouth releases her nipple. It will not always be so easy to make him happy, but for the moment it is. For now, she is enough, just as she is. She buttons her nightgown and brings the baby to her shoulder. She pats his back and glories in the feel of his sweet breath against her neck. One day he will go off to university. He will fight for King and country. He will know love and loss and marriage. One day he will move mountains. But for now, he is her baby, her long-awaited answer to prayer.

oOo

Where it was dark, now there's light
Where there was pain, now there's joy
Where there was weakness, I found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy

Like it? Hate it? Do let me know. Happy Mother's Day to the mamas out there! xx