CLAIRE IS NOT THINKING CLEARLY.
Megan showed me that last one.
Something inside me became very still.
There it was again.
Not thinking clearly.
Even from outside the locked maternity ward, Eric was already writing the story.
He wasn’t a husband who had abandoned his pregnant wife in pain.
I was an irrational woman surrounded by relatives who had overreacted.
“Don’t respond,” I said.
Megan looked surprised.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“No, I mean if he texts you about me. Don’t explain. Don’t argue. Don’t defend me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m tired of everybody helping him turn this into a debate.”
Megan reached over and squeezed my hand.
“All right.”
The contractions slowed that evening.
For a while, it looked like the medication was working.
Then shortly after midnight, the pain changed.
I knew immediately.
A deep pressure spread across my abdomen, followed by a sharp ache that made me grip the bed rail.
The nurse came in.
Then another.
Within minutes, my doctor was back.
The baby’s heart rate had begun dipping during contractions.
They adjusted my position.
Gave me oxygen.
More people entered.
The room stopped feeling like a room and became a workplace.
Everyone had a task.
I remember looking at Megan and seeing fear on her face.
“What’s happening?”
The doctor came beside me.
“We’re seeing signs the placenta may be separating.”
I knew enough to understand the words.
Not enough to understand what came next.
“Can you stop it?”
“If the baby continues to show distress, the safest option may be delivery.”
My baby was six weeks early.
I started crying.
“It’s too soon.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t let anything happen to her.”
The doctor squeezed my hand.
“We’re going to take care of both of you.”
Her.
That was how certain I had been from the beginning, though we had chosen not to announce the sex.
A daughter.
At 1:47 in the morning, the monitors made the decision for us.
Emergency C-section.
Everything after that comes back in flashes.
Bright lights.
Someone placing a cap over my hair.
Megan calling Dad.
The anesthesiologist asking me questions.
My doctor saying my name.
Then pressure.
A strange pulling sensation.
And finally a tiny cry.
Not loud.
But there.
My daughter was born weighing four pounds, eleven ounces.
They showed her to me for maybe three seconds before the neonatal team took her.
She had dark hair.
A furious little face.
And the smallest hands I had ever seen.
I kept asking, “Is she breathing?”
Someone answered yes.
She needed support, but she was breathing.
I cried until I shook.
We named her Lily.
Eric was not there.
For hours afterward, I felt guilty about that.
I need to admit that.
