Shawna by Maggie Wells

Author:Maggie Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABDO
Published: 2015-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

THE NEXT TIME SHE OPENED HER EYES, THE ROOM WAS in shadows. Her eyes ached as she squinted to see in the dimness. Philippe was slumped over in a chair across the room and she rubbed her eyes to see him more clearly. The lamp next to the bed made a small circle of light.

She woke up a little at a time. Her body hurt all over and her head was pounding. She knew where she was but she couldn’t remember what had happened.

“Did I have the baby?” Her voice came out in a croak. She touched her stomach. It felt loose and flabby. It reminded her of a balloon that someone had let the air out of. Of course I had the baby, she thought. My body is empty. “Did I kill it?”

Philippe approached the bed. “You’re awake!” he said.

“Where’s my baby?” Shawna asked. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Philippe said, stroking her arm. “He’s in the nursery getting cleaned up. I’ll let the nurse know you’re awake. That was pretty rough there toward the end. The doctor was threatening to perform a C-section. All that blood! It was like a slasher movie. And then you fell asleep.”

“What time is it?” Shawna asked.

“It’s about seven,” Philippe said. “Jack was born thirty minutes ago. You held him for a minute, but you were so tired that they thought you should rest. Anyway, you passed out like a minute later.”

“I want to see him again,” Shawna said.

“I’ll go get him,” Philippe said and left the room. He returned with a nurse rolling a bassinet. She positioned the bassinet next to Shawna’s head.

“Here, let’s sit you up so you can hold him,” the nurse said. “Do you want to try to breast feed now?”

The nurse raised the head of Shawna’s bed and positioned her pillows to prop her up. She gingerly picked up the sleeping baby and showed Shawna how to support his head.

The surge of love Shawna felt for the tiny, wrinkled baby in her arms was staggering. She realized at that moment that she had never felt love before. Not love like this. There was nothing that could ever come close to the love she was feeling. She stared into the baby’s face, dumbstruck by the overwhelming power of the moment. This was the baby that she and Philippe had created and her body had nurtured from a mass of cells to this, a perfectly-formed human being. This was the baby that she had visualized and talked to, that had occupied one hundred percent of her bandwidth for so many months. Shawna pulled back Jack’s tiny knitted cap. A mass of wet black hair was stuck to his head. Shawna loosened the blanket and Jack drew out an arm. His tiny clenched fist immediately found its way to his mouth and his thumb popped right in.

Shawna looked up at Philippe. “Just like in the ultrasound image,” she said.

Philippe was struggling to maintain his composure. He had been strong for her all day but now he looked exhausted and emotional, like he was going to collapse.

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