June, 10th
Frederick:
Olivia Hale-Barbour, my daughter, was born today via emergency c-section. It's been the happiest and scariest day of my life: Dolores said she was feeling strange so we went to the hospital. Right after our arrival they tried to find the baby's heartbeat but they found none.
They performed the cesarean and took the baby out in about four minutes, which felt like four hours waiting barefoot on an iceberg, after which we found that Dolores was having preeclampsia and that was affecting Olivia. They rushed Olivia to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unite, the NICU, and some hours later, which alternatively feel like days or seconds, Mother Nature is performing her miracle and my daughter, after fighting off quite the rocky start and soiling her first diaper, sleeps peacefully.
Her crib is surrounded by beeping machines and medical stuff I can't possibly name but I seem to be blind to those for I simply cannot take my eyes out of her. I've tried to snap pictures but they don't do her any justice. Photographs can hardly catch the impossible softness of her skin, the roundness of her cheeks, the perfect tiny hands and feet. Still, I take one of her face (the hat and blanket take most of it but there's the nose and a hand poking out) and send it to my sister.
Thirty seconds later I get a message from Margaret, asking if she can call. She does, and the brand new aunt is just so excited that I am happy to provide the first real source of joy since our mother died. Both Olivia and Dolores need to stay at the hospital for a few days and summer in Cádiz is quite hot, so I don't think grandpa Hale will be visiting any time soon. It doesn't matter because there will be time for that.
Edith:
Oh, Olivia is so cute! And she'll be friends with my little boy, who is due on early September. It's all so nice... I wonder when Margaret will join our little club. I'm losing my hopes with Henry and her getting back but as they say, there's plenty more fish in the sea, isn't there?