Growth of an Individual

Chapter One

Men should not be allowed to participate in any part of the birthing experience other than the act that it takes to get to the birthing part.

This was the only thing that was running through my mind as I held my child in my arms for the first time. I knew that I shouldn't care that I looked absolutely dreadful, covered in sweat, blood, and tears. It shouldn't bother me that my legs were still spread open for any passing stranger to see. But it did bother me. In fact, I had tears welling up in my eyes; not from joy, from the humiliation that my unclean red curls were sticking unpleasantly to my face and I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

I couldn't even look at my husband. All I felt was an extreme awkwardness, he'd probably divorce me now. Well of course I had to let her go, he'd tell all of his friends, if you had seen that horrific scene you would have too. I mean you have never seen an uglier woman, especially when you add in all that fat, yuck. I thought that after she had the kid the excess weight would be gone…I knew that whole eating for two nonsense was crap.

"You are so beautiful," Harry whispered in my ear as he placed an affectionate kiss on my forehead and then one on our new daughter's. Filthy liar, he knew damned well that I looked anything besides beautiful. I kept quiet though, even though I knew he was lying it was still somewhat nice to hear. It would be nicer if it were true. You should look beautiful after you give birth, you go through all that pain, you should come out of looking like a beauty queen.

"God Gin," he continued while wiping away my tears, "do you have any idea how amazing you are?" I finally met his gaze and was astounded to see a tender loving look there. Surprisingly enough, this made me somewhat angry. He had no right to look at me like he truly thought I was more beautiful than ever. It would be better if he just looked away in shame and told me that he would give me a few hours to 'pull myself together' before coming back and visiting with us.

"What do you think we should name her," he asked while turning his doting gaze to his daughter. I bit my lip and hung my head in shame, I was so confident that it would be a boy that I kind of had only been concerned with boy names. I had good ones too!

Taking my silence the wrong way he gave me a shy smile, "are you not going to talk to me at all?"

I had begged him to allow me to name the child. I'm the one who has to carry it for nine months and do the actual give birth thing, had been my main argument. After a long fight that had ended with him making a run to get me chocolate ice cream with pickles he had agreed to leave the naming to me. At the moment I felt kind of bad about my selfishness, but if you had heard the names he wanted you would have put up a fight too! He wanted to name our poor innocent child Albus Hagrid if it was a boy. Now Hagrid and Dumbledore are both two fine, upstanding gentlemen that I consider myself lucky to even know, but that name is just dreadful. But at the moment reaping my rewards for winning the fight didn't seem quite as sweet as they had at the time. I had no name. I needed to buy some time…

I turned my head to him and closed most of the distance between us, "I love you." He smiled and filled the remaining space, naming momentarily forgotten. As I allowed him to fuss over me for a few minutes my mind rampaged through every girl name that I had ever heard of. Alexandria? No, too prissy. Natalie? This one seemed alright. Except, she just didn't look like a Natalie. This was difficult.

"Gin?" Harry said after he had promptly smothered me with feathery kisses, "how about a name? We don't want our little girl to be an anonymous no one, now do we?"

At this point I burst into tears. "Oh God you're right! She is going to suffer an identity crisis because her mother was too stupid to give her the right name!"

His eyes widened in horror, "no, no, no," he expertly backtracked, "I'm sure that whatever name you've decided upon will be absolutely perfect."

"That's just it though," I cried out in confession, "I don't have a name picked out, I only thought of boy names!"

"Oh," he said, clearly showing his surprise, "well that's alright then, just think of one now."

Just think of one now? Was the man mad? Sure, why don't I just brand my child with a name that could very well ruin her life. A horrible name could mean that she would be made fun of, beat up…she would never get a date because everyone would be too horrified to be attached to a name as awful as hers!

"What's your favorite girl name Gin?" I glared at him, if I knew what my favorite girl name was then I wouldn't very well be in this bloody situation! Sensing his mistake he tried again. "What's that one girl that you and Hermione are always going on about? The one that's sickeningly thin that's always on our television?"

"Audrey Hepburn," I offered.

"That's the one," he snapped his fingers together, "you're always saying how much you admire her and I know that we have all of her movies…on VHS and DVD, but I won't get into the uselessness of that."

"You want me to name her Audrey?" I asked in an extremely dry tone.

"Well," he said innocently, "why not?"

I looked down at the miracle in my arms. Audrey. Somehow it fit. So perhaps I was a little delirious with lack of sleep and pain exhaustion, but she really did look like an Audrey. She was so pure and small. "Audrey," I said with a smile, "I like it."

He smiled back in relief, "so Audrey then?" I nodded in confirmation as he picked up her small hand and placed it into his own, "Audrey Potter," he said in a serious tone, "welcome to the world."

A few hours and a good cleaning for both Audrey and myself did me a world of good. Things were looking up; my hair was fresh and clean, my body was no longer drenched in sweat, my legs were closed, and I had the most beautiful little girl in the world.

I meant that too, she really was astonishingly gorgeous, especially when she wasn't crying…which unfortunately for me, wasn't often. Her loud wails pierced through the supposed peaceful silence of the hospital and I looked around frantically, waiting for someone to barge into the room and yell that hospitals were supposed to be quiet.

But the only person who came was Harry, and the only thing he did was kiss Audrey and lovingly say that she was the sweetest thing he had ever encountered. Sweet? Didn't he hear the deaf making sounds coming from her? I flinched immediately after having that thought, he was right she was sweet, just a tad loud.

After a few more moments of me inexpertly rocking Audrey and doing everything short of begging on my hands and knees to get her to stop crying, Harry eased her out of my tired arms and into his own stronger ones. Once he had her settled with him in the chair beside of my bed she looked up at him with her huge blue eyes in wonder and stopped crying. I was so relieved that I almost burst into a sobbing fit myself.

It was complete beautiful bliss. I rested against the assortment of pillows and let the image of my husband and child sink into my mind. I wanted to remember this forever, Harry carefully holding his daughter for the first time. I was about to get my wand out to conjure a camera to make sure that I would always remember this when the door opened to reveal a young, pretty, and not to mention perky, nurse.

I glared at her harshly, she was interrupting my moment. "Hello," she greeted happily, unaware that her death was being plotted in my mind. She immediately rushed over to Harry and Audrey and leaned down to get a better look at my child, giving my husband an unavoidable view of her chest. My glare deepened as the word home wrecker flashed through my mind with neon lights.

"Did you want something" I asked coldly.

She jerked up and glanced at me nervously. Good, she should be afraid of me. "Um, well you see they sent me so that I could show you -er, teach you- how to breastfeed."

Breastfeed? I looked down at my chest in horror, God that sounded atrociously painful. And what did she mean show me? She had damn well better keep those 'perky' breasts of hers underneath that unattractive white robe set that all the nurses wore.

Sensing impending danger Harry stood carefully and moved beside me, "I think that perhaps it would be best to wait a while longer, let Gin rest up some."

The blonde bimbo agreed and left hurriedly. Harry turned to me in an amused fashion, "I think you have terrified the nurse."

I shrugged and pulled him and Audrey down on the bed with me. Nurse forgotten he smiled at me as we both held our daughter, I would worry about breastfeeding later.