ROW80 check in & Writing prompt #10: Write about the morning after.

 POSTING LATE DUE TO THUNDER STORMS :)
So I am checking in for ROW80,
which is going reasonably well.
I'm moving forward but right now it feels so slow,
like trying to walk through thick mud.
I've also been really tired lately,
went to bed at 9pm the other night.
Here's hoping I can just keep trudging along.

Anyway,
today's writing prompt is "Write about the morning after."
No editing,
just writing.
Let's see if I can get this done before I fall asleep,
or I get cut off by the monster storm in my area.

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My eyes flutter open and for a moment I don't know where I am.  The smells so sterile and the sound of a baby crying -- wait, was that my baby?  I look around the room frantically but the bassinet is empty.  From behind the pastel tissue paper curtain I hear another mother crooning to her baby.  I sit up and shake my head trying to focus on what had happened last night. The sudden pain across my abdomen brings me to reality, we were waiting for our baby. 

Every night, Edward would talk and sing songs to my tummy.  Dreaming dreams so big for such a little bump.  But when the time came you were too weak and a c-section was done.  The day that should have been full of joyful phone calls and time just spent staring at all ten fingers and toes was robbed from us.  An emergency and then you were rushed away and I spent the night alone in the hospital.  I look to the bedside table and see the grainy polaroid picture.  You look alien to me--who is this tiny child.  The photo feels light and cold in my hands.  I set my mouth in a thin line, this is not my child.

Then Edward is there holding my hand, fussing over me.  Soon we will meet this child...this Samantha. The wheel me to a room where large machines hunch keeping a watchful eye on their charges in the incubators.  And there you are with a sign over you with your name and pink balloons.  I can barely stand to look at you so foreign behind the plexiglass.  My heart skips a beat...what a horrible mother I am!  Then the nurse, everything about her in constant motion, is taking the bundle out of the incubator and disconnecting the lines from her body. Suddenly you are in my arms. I notice the weight of her first. Samantha. Then I can feel the heat coming from your tiny body.  Your eyelids flutter and a small smile crosses your face.  I count ten fingers.  I see eyes just like Edward's.  A chin just like mine. You stir, nestling deeper into my embrace with a soft sigh. A tear makes a track down my cheek.  This is my baby. Welcome baby Samantha.