She's such a beautiful child. Her long eyelashes rest on her cheeks which are flushed red with sleep, her curly brown hair falls in tendrils around her face and is splayed all over her pink pillow case. Her little fingers are clasped around her pink bunny Mitsy which I got her just after she was born. She's so perfect. She's my beautiful little girl.
When she's awake shes the most gorgeous little thing you could ever see. She has my cheeky smile and my piercing brown eyes. She studies you so intently when she's with you that you could swear those eyes could see deep into your soul even if she is only at the tender age of four. She has brown ringlets which frame her little heart shaped face and rosebud lips that open to reveal the most infectious giggle. She's so affectionate too. She loves kisses and cuddles. When I come here to see her she envelopes me in a huge hug and thats it for the rest of the day, her kisses and cuddles are mine and only mine. I guess its because I don't see her that often though I try to at least once a week. When I'm here as far as she's concerned I'm here for her and her only and so we spend every second together without a moment wasted where we could have hugs or cuddles or play.
I so wish I could see her more than I do but I don't want to confuse her. She knows I'm her mummy and that I love her but that her nanna and papa are taking care of her because I can't. I wouldn't want to throw her routine out when we all decided that life with them would be more suitable than what I could give her.
She's got a gorgeous room. Its all pink with a pink television and dvd player and all the dolls and teddys a four year old could wish for. She has a bed decorated in fairy lights and a purple throw adorns it which we cuddle up under on my day off and watch the Tweenies together till her hearts content.
My parents completely dote on her. I could never have given her all of the things that they do or all of the love. Not with a job where I wouldn't be around for her or with the lets go out and party attitude that I havent seemed to have grown out of yet. I didn't have the time for her when she was really little and my career was more important to me than being a mum. I'm not the nuturing mothering type. I'm not responsible enough to raise her. At least I didn't think I was...but when I see her, especially now shes got such a personality and such a lot of love for a mother that hasn't been able to raise her...When I see her all I want to do is hold my baby close, tell her that mummy loves her so much and make her the part of my life she should have been since the day that she was born.
When I say goodbye to my beautiful baby every week...it tears my heart to shreds. Leaving her breaks me, but I know she'll get over it. She'll have all her hugs ready for next time she sees me and all the kisses a mummy could want. After all I'm not really mother material if I can leave her like that am I? or she wouldn't be here with my parents instead of me. We all knew they'd do a better job with her when I wanted my career so much. Falling pregnant was such an accident. I just wish...
I remember when I found out I was pregnant with her. My little Jasmine. I was terrified. I'd had a fling with a guy at med school who turned out to be not so nice the minute he found out I was carrying his child. It was a total shock. One day I was care free finishing my final months and the next I was throwing up in the toilets every morning while doing rounds and napping on my breaks. I knew something wasnt right when I didn't get my period. I've always been regular and one month it just didnt come. I put off doing a test. I brushed it all off as stress and a bug. I didnt want to consider the possibility it was anything else but when my period didn't come again and the nausea continued I knew I had to do a test.
Sitting there waiting for the words pregnant or not pregnant to appear were the longest three minutes of my life. I was in a hospital toilet cubicle and the test was trembling in my hands as I waited for one phrase or the other to appear. I knew in my heart what it would say so when it did although I was shocked I expected it. I burst into tears right there and then. I had never felt so lost. There was a baby inside of me that I didn't really want and which couldn't have come at a worse time. How could we have been so stupid?
I booked a termination right away. I wanted it gone and forgotten about. I wanted to finish medical school and to be a doctor without a child to worry about. I made it as far as the waiting room before I bottled it. I just couldnt do unexpected part of me didnt want to terminate the life of my unborn child. I just couldn't bear the thought of terminating the life of what would grow to be a living, breathing little person with fingers and toes and a heartbeat. It was then that I decided on adoption and to tell my parents about the baby. I may have had to go through with the pregnancy and give birth but at least I could give a loving couple a child of their own that they were so desperate for. Unlike me. While I found myself wondering if I could raise the baby I couldn't terminate, I knew that I couldnt raise it. It just wasnt the right time.
The adoption idea flew out of the window almost as soon as I told my mum about Jasmine. At first she was really angry at how I could be so irresponsible. Dad wouldnt even talk to me and left the room. Uncharacteristically I burst into tears in front of her when he did that. I told her that I was sorry, that i hadn't meant for it to happen and that I'd even gone for a termination but couldn't do it because it was a baby. That got her crying too. She asked if I wanted the baby and I found myself saying yes but that there was no way I could raise one at this point in my career. I was just getting started and she herself said that she thought I didnt have the right attitude to be a mother which didn't go down very well at the time. She said I was too selfish and caught up in being young. I had to agree. I wasn't ready, but I did want someone to love my baby who could give it a better home than I ever could.
It was into my fourth month that mum approached me about her and dad raising Jas. They'd seen me looking at my scan photo rather wistfully and watched me getting quite attatched to my new bump and decided that while I wasn't in a fit state or place in my career to raise her that they didn't want the baby to go somewhere where I'd never get to know it or be part of its life. I didn't know what to say at first. Part of me thought it would be easier for the little one to go to a new family but as I got bigger and the baby grew inside me and I felt her kick, move and hiccup I knew that I couldn't not be part of its life because I did love it so very much. I loved it when it kicked and when I could feel it wriggling around. I loved my bump because it meant that there was a little person safe inside of me who was getting bigger every day, and looking at the scans and hearing her heartbeart was magical, even for someone like me who's not a natural mother. I relished getting bigger and as I reached the end of the pregnancy and knew my parents would be raising the baby I found myself feeling sadness as well as relief because while I wanted to move on my career I ached to be the one to do all that I should be doing with my soon to arrive little girl.
Holding her after the long labour that brought her into my arms was an amazing moment. For the first day I was in hospital with her I was her mother. I could feed her and hold her when she cried. I could sing to her and kiss her little forehead and tell her how much I loved her as any mother would. I could forget my career and my selfishness and my inability to be able to care for her and could become completely wrapped up in motherhood. I was in awe of her tiny fingers that clasped one of mine or grabbed at my curls. I was in awe of her toes and tiny button nose and her gorgeous brown eyes. She was a beautiful little thing.
The day I left her at my parents was one of the worst days of my life. Leaving behind my little girl when I ached to feed her and hold her and sing her to sleep was so painful. I longed to breastfeed her when I heard her hungry cries but I couldn't and mum wouldnt let me any time I was there and she wanted milk. It wasn't fair when I wouldn't be around all the other times to do it and it would upset us both.
I knew it was for the best to leave her with them. We all decided it was, and as I watched her grow up into such a cheeky, adventurous, loving little girl while my career progressed all the time, it made me feel like I had made the right choice. She blossomed with them whereas she wouldnt have with me.
My parents love Jasmine to bits. They have taken care of her so well. All I do is work, drink and sleep with random men that I don't even know because I don't like to get serious. Not very mother like behaviour is it?
I've spent a whole day off with her every week since she was born. When she was a baby I used to go round, bathe her, feed her, change her nappies, sing her to sleep, dance with her, take her for walks...I missed her first word and steps but at least I was around right? and then as she got older I could do more with her, until she went to nursery and I wasn't able to see her as much. The evenings when she gets home are the best because all she wants to do is tell me what she's done and show me the pictures shes drawn for me that day. You can't stop her from talking and that always makes me smile. Then I get her fed and bathed and tuck her up into bed, reading to her until she falls asleep on me. Her favourite thing to do is to have me under the duvet too so she can lay with her head on my chest and my arm around her and listen to the story until she drifts off.
As I sit and look at her I can't help but think that no matter how lucky I am to have her, I have missed out on so much. Here is my gorgeous little girl. My brown haired, brown eyed angel and I missed out on her first words and first steps, on all of those precious moments because of my being career driven and too selfish to bring up a child. Its during these moments, when I see her so peaceful, when I wonder how I gave birth to such a perfect little thing. I wonder how I ever found it in myself to give her away whether to my parents or not. She's my girl. My beautiful girl and it hurts my heart that in just a few minutes I am going to leave her for another week to do the job that used to be the most important thing in my life.
I hear a knock at the door and smile sadly as my mum enters. She gives me a sympathetic smile in return as I look at my daughter and brush a tear away from my cheek.
"Time to go Madeline." She tells me softly and walks up to me, kissing me on the top of my head.
"I love her so much mum." I admit to her as she walks back over to the bedroom door.
I bend over and kiss Jasmine on the forehead. She pulls Mitsy closer to her and turns over with a smile on her face.
"I know sweetheart. She loves you too. You're her mummy after all. Same time next week?" she asks and I look at my daughter and nod.
"Same time next week." I reply.
I get up off the bed and leave the room and my sleeping little angel behind me. For another week in all of those weeks that have passed in four years I am left to wonder if my heart will ever stop hurting in all of the moments that pass where I don't get to see my little girl.