Any description of the pains of labour could never do the actual event justice.
It was a million times worse… and then some.
Marisa had passed the latent phase of her labour whilst taking slow laps about her house throughout the late evening, which was when the first bouts of irregular contractions arrived, into the night and up until the early morning. Edward and her mother had tried their best to stay awake with her, following Marisa up and down the stairs, around the dining table and through the various rooms. But often enough one or, at times, both would succumb to a seated position and doze off, only to rejoin Marisa a couple hours later. The only person that fared the entirety of the sleepless night with Marisa was the gyptian nurse, Maggie Costa. Bless her.
Maggie was a slight but, by no means, delicate woman. A few years Marisa's senior, she was rough-edged and confident, proud to wear her figurative medallion as a 'Gyptian Woman' about her neck. Her hawk daemon, Jal, loomed over their every move; his protectionist behaviour in regards to Maggie painfully obvious. At first sight, Marisa had feared she wouldn't get along with the nurse Asriel had matched her with, the woman's plain-spoken manner seeming to be a tough pill to swallow. However, the initial displeasure shared amongst the Coulters and Madame Delamere at the spirited woman soon faded as they grew to appreciate the boisterous disposition Maggie possessed which filled the night with hilarious anecdotal stories of her life. During their time alone, Maggie would run over what was to happen once the child had been born and Marisa soaked up the information the best she could during her haze of pain, the absurdity of it all still amazing her.
Established labour hit Marisa like a freight train. Her water had broken on the landing as she was held upright by both her mother and Maggie. The gyptian nurse had observed that now was probably a good time for her to take Marisa into the bedroom and get her more comfortable for what was to come. Edward had given his wife one last embrace whilst her mother whispered a few last reassuring words, already giddy with excitement and was probably planning on calling round family and friends once Marisa was out of sight. Oh, how Marisa hated to disappoint but today might just well be a first.
Maggie had helped Marisa experiment with a few positions. Anything on the bed had speedily been eliminated and the pair soon decided a rotation between all fours and leaning against the bedposts was their best option. Ozymandias remained inseparable from Marisa, watching her with concerned beady black eyes whenever she groaned in discomfort. The poor thing looked like he wanted to trade places with her but, as fate would have it, this was a cross Marisa would have to bear alone.
All she could do was curse Asriel for this.
This lonely, unwanted pain that ruptured through her body.
The gyptian had tried to distract Marisa during the steady pushing stage with stories of her son, Tony, who'd been born around this time a couple of years back, but it soon became evident that Mrs Coulter was no longer listening. The contractions had become too strong, clenching her uterus like a tightened fist and holding the position for up to a minute at a time before relaxing only to return minutes later. Eventually, Marisa could no longer find the strength to walk or talk. She found herself as a hyperventilating mess on the carpet, grime and sweat coating her skin as she gripped onto Ozymandias' hand. As often as possible she tried to push through her contractions even though Maggie advised her there was no rush and she should only entertain pushing if she felt the urge. To Marisa it felt like she always had the urge, like there was this huge load inside her waiting to be crapped out. The sounds she was making must have started to worry the nurse as she suddenly gave up trying to soothe Marisa through the ordeal and turned to something else for help.
"Hang in there, I've got something for this," Maggie said as Jal, her hawk, swooped from his perch on the wardrobe to fly between basins of warm water and towel piles to reach the gyptian's kit bag that was perforated with inch-wide holes for today. Jal pulled the bag by his beak towards Maggie from which she picked out a small vial.
"What's that?" Marisa let out in a huff. She was on all fours again.
"I'm not sure, really. A herbal blend, maybe?" Maggie uncapped the small container and passed it to Marisa. Ozymandias moved to sniff it only to recoil at the stench. "All I know is that it works."
"Is it safe to take it all?" Marisa questioned as she collected it, staring at the leafy sediments that floated about in the liquid.
"Depends on how much pain -" Maggie stopped as she watched Marisa down the whole bottle in one go, only to gag and shake her head as the aftertaste set in. "Yeah, it tastes like hell but you should be feeling better now," Maggie smiled, "It's quite instantaneous." That was putting it lightly, Marisa thought, what had been a set of stabbing knives lining her pelvis had subsided into a humming ache.
"Why didn't you give me this earlier?" Marisa felt good enough to rise a little and kneel against the bedpost.
"It slows down dilation so it's best to save it until the end. On that point -"
Marisa groaned. Another vaginal check-up. This part had to be the most embarrassing part of the whole process, topping the ear-piercing screams that erupted from her mouth during contractions and her tottering around in a half-naked state.
"Please tell me I'm near?"
"Are you comfortable with your position, ma'am?"
Marisa turned to see Maggie had layered the floor around her with towels and was currently dipping a few towels in warm water.
"Erm, Maggie... what's happening?"
"You're crowning. Just keep doing what you're doing and I'll instruct you on any changes when needed."
Ozymandias had propped himself onto the bedpost to meet Marisa eye to eye. His expectant eyes examined her face and she watched as the golden monkey's brows furrowed as she let out a constrained sigh. The pain was slowly starting to return, not as bad as before, but noticeable. To distract herself from it all, Marisa turned to observe the gyptian as she pulled out items from her bag. A couple clamps. A piece of gauze. A scissor which she sterilised with some alcohol. All laid out on a small board. The last thing she pulled out was a glass bottle of clear liquid which she used to saturate a small towel.
"It's the general anaesthesia I told you about." Maggie must have felt Marisa's eyes keenly on her. "It's a low concentration. Should only knock the child out for ten minutes at the most."
The whole procedure they'd planned out sounded much more clinical when voiced aloud, so far detached from the natural process of childbirth it felt like Marisa was putting her baby under the knife before it could even make a sound. No, it didn't feel like that. That was quite literally what was about to happen. The whole situation was so fucked up.
She swayed against the bedpost as another contraction hit. She couldn't wait for this to be over. Maggie took another look and then advised her to stop pushing and take some short breaths, exhaling through her mouth, the less intensive movements allowing the baby's head to come out as gently as possible to prevent tearing. Once the head was out, Maggie then told her to push through the remaining contractions as the rest of the body slid out. Marisa felt herself escape the finale of what had totaled to be almost eleven hours of labour as Ozymandias gripped her fingers in solidarity, maintaining eye contact with her until it was over. The only signifier of the end had been when Maggie ceased telling her to push and the quietness that befell the room.
No shrill cry of life.
Marisa had stolen that right of passage from her child.
Her first of two sedative acts against her child unbeknownst to her.
She crumpled onto the towels on the floor as Maggie handed her the baby that was still bound to her by the umbilical cord. Marisa placed her index finger under its button nose and sure enough, by the tiny puffs of warm air that curved around her finger, the child was alive. It was bloody and covered in gunk. Its baby hairs glued to the scalp; a full head of dark brown - not blonde - hair. Marisa needed no further proof, she already knew the truth of the matter in the depths of her soul. But her conviction was strengthened as she slowly cleaned the dozing baby with one of the warm towels Maggie had handed her. The baby looked nothing like Edward and barely even took after herself, bearing most of its features to Asriel just like he'd predicted/cursed the child to do. The only thing Marisa had found that bound the child to her was its sex for, as it turned out, it was a girl.
She was a girl.
With brown hair and what Marisa could only suspect were blue eyes behind those closed lids. She looked so peaceful asleep in her arms. An angel. Marisa's heart swelled with love and adoration for the small human in her arms. She was perfect; Marisa could not imagine a child more perfect and as she watched the currently daemon-less girl sleep, she felt an unnatural urge to never let go but needs must...
"The cord has stopped pulsing." Marisa had forgotten Maggie was even in the room. "I'm just going to go ahead and cut it now. You don't have to do anything."
Once the string that held them together was broken a disillusionment with her daughter started to brew within Marisa. The maternal rush of love had faded and thoughts started to collect in her mind as the girl's daemon slowly started to manifest beside her, its first form being that of a pure white ermine. For reasons unknown to Marisa, seeing her daughter's daemon was her undoing. She began to cry unprovoked as she stared at the pair of them. Her love for them slowly being poisoned with feelings of shame, guilt and self-loathing. The child, by no fault of her own, was a living symbol of Marisa's failure. Of her inability to maintain control. She was a painful reminder of how she melted under Asriel. A culmination of all the events that had led to this present moment and Marisa could not bear the memories that flooded into her as she looked upon her daughter. It hurt Marisa to call herself the child's moth-. She couldn't think it. Her eyes shifted up to look at Ozymandias who gazed at the trio from the bed, his face unreadable. Marisa couldn't even tell what emotion she was feeling right now.
"I'm sorry," Maggie apologised as she gently removed the baby from Marisa's weak embrace. "We should get going. The anaesthesia isn't going to last for much longer." She picked up the ermine too and wrapped the pair in a soft blanket before placing them into the holed bag.
Marisa didn't have the will to fight it. She listened to life play out around her whilst she remained slumped on the soiled towels beneath her as if she was no longer the main character in her own story. She heard Maggie and Jal exit the bedroom after offering a solemn goodbye, both baby and daemon secretly in tow. She heard Maggie break the news to her family who waited outside the bedroom. Her mother wailed in anguish, rushing into the room to comfort Marisa whilst Edward had collapsed to the ground by the door and let out constrained sobs. Marisa heard hushed whispers outside, others must've arrived. They were all offering their condolences but the words fell on deaf ears. Tears streamed down her cheeks on their own accord but Marisa could not understand why as she felt nothing. She remembered being moved to lay on the bed, family and friends all about her bedside grieving with her. However, she had left the constructed event of grief and loss that surrounded her. Her heart, mind and soul were with her daughter - wherever she was now. Marisa both longed for her and repulsed her. It was a toxic mix of emotions that swelled inside her. She remained catatonic on the bed for the rest of the day, struggling to work through her emotions but one thing remained on her mind.
She never got the chance to name her daughter.