Hello again! I started writing this a while ago and to be honest I just wanted to get it finished. I basically just ended up rambling on, whatever came to mind ended up on this page, so I hope you enjoy!
You lie there in that hospital bed, the epidural's wearing off and you begin to feel a dull ache in your lower abdomen, with every movement you no longer feel the pokes of the tiny limbs of your baby girl but a sharp twinge as your stitches pull. All of this is just a reminder of what you've lost, the last you saw was the lifeless body your daughter being carried away by a group of strangers as you began to lose all hope of that dream life with a family. That irritating midwife comes in and spouts you some rubbish about 'babies doing what babies want to do', you expect it's her attempt at a pep talk, but there's something in her eyes that borders on empathy, something she's hiding from the rest of the world. "We loved our children, even if they weren't ours for very long"... then he bursts in, and makes the announcement, says the words you never thought you'd hear, your daughter's alive and you can't quite believe it. You notice the sparkle of her father's eyes which brings a smile to your face as he kisses you delicately on the forehead. You're not sure whether it's your hormones or the sheer exhaustion of the day but you feel yourself falling for him all over again, you miss him and you feel like today has bought you together...but the only hope for this to continue is your daughter, the only link between the pair of you is the tiny life hanging in the balance between life and death in NICU.
A week later and you've been discharged, you think about phoning a taxi but the thought of going home to an empty flat makes your stomach churn so you order a coffee and sit in the café downstairs. You're not sure why because you end up leaving it to go cold and just sit staring into the distance, feeling incapable of focusing your mind on anything. A young HCA you've never seen before comes and sits next to you, you're not really listening to her because her chirpy voice makes your head pound, but you think you hear her mention Mo. Eventually it gets too much listening to this carefree stranger babbling on about her trivial problems and you realise what it is you need to do. You make your way towards the lift and press the button for Darwin once you're inside. In your mind you believe that burying your head in the sand and ignoring this while you get on with your work is the best idea. As you exit through the lift doors you feel a sharp twinge in your stomach, as you look back now you realise that actually that probably a sign you should go home and rest.
Later in the day and the consultant on NICU has called you both up to talk about your daughter. It's only then that they realise you haven't actually been to meet this little person yet, this little being grew inside you for nine months, and you haven't even had the courtesy to say 'hi'. He shoots you an angry stare and a part of you agrees with how he's feeling. You're hating yourself at that moment, knowing that your baby girl is fighting for her tiny life in that incubator in a strange and scary place, while you go back to normal and get yourself stuck into tricky heart conditions and difficult patients. But, you feel that you - being you - would not be any help to her at the moment.
Eventually you go and meet this child, this tiny little human being that's causing you all this heart ache. You think it's ludicrous that you love this person so much when you've never met her. She doesn't even have a name - how can you love a person without a name? People keep telling you that you need to think of one but how can you? That morning it took you almost an hour to have a shower because your head is so all over the place. You know that your not in the right frame of mind to name a gerbil right now, never mind an actual human being. Why is everyone so keen for this to happen though? If she has a name - an identity - that makes her real. That just means you'll get yourself even more attached to this person when you know deep in your heart that it won't work out. Nothing ever works out the way you hope it will for you because that's just not how your life is meant to be. That said, it's him that you feel sorry for, he didn't know what he was getting into when he got involved with you and now it's going to come back to hurt him. It's all your fault and you know you should have warned him in the first place that you weren't worth the effort.
Everyone keeps telling you what a 'great mother' your going to be but there's no reason for them to believe that. All the natural things that women are meant to be good at, to do without even trying, you failed at. Even if your daughter survives, it's in your genes to be a bad mother. You know that you're own Mum didn't want you in the first place, you know you weren't really meant to exist. Your life wasn't meant to be and until now you've left no trace of yourself in the world. This is all wrong, it's as if someone has gone back in time and trodden on a butterfly, causing the whole course of history to rearrange itself. Before, if you left, it wouldn't make much difference. Maybe, just maybe a couple of people would miss you for a while, but it's not like you'd leave a significant hole in anyone's life. Now, you've made this massive change in his life - the man you confessed your love to - and when it all goes wrong he'll hate you and the guilt might just be too much. You already feel terrible for bringing another little person into the world, you've learnt the hard way that it's a scary place to be and no place for a baby to have to grow up. Even if she does make it through this operation, even if she gets through her childhood happily, there's still so much that could go wrong. So, what about the day when she ends up hating you for bringing her into this life, full of hurt and anger and pain?
Finally the day comes, you're told that you can hold your child and the thought of that terrifies you. Initially you do the only thing you know how to and leave it all up to her father to be the first person to cradle and comfort her. In the end though, you do it. At an inconvenient moment as always, you make the decision to believe in your daughter and everything she's already been through and you let all your worries go as she's placed gently into your arms. She's inexplicably small and the contrast of her tiny fingers next to yours is mind-blowing. He's sat next to you during this momentous occasion and his presence seems to tell you that everything is going to be alright. As your baby girl is looking up at you you're realising that your worries were unfounded, she's been through so much already and that just tells you that she's going to fight until she gets what she wants. You believe in this child and that makes you believe in yourself, believe that you would never do anything to hurt her because the love you feel for her is unconditional.