MOLLY
“Here she is!”
I can barely keep my eyes open.
They’re tired from the lack of sleep and swollen from all the crying.
My body is exhausted.
Every limb, every muscle—every piece of me is screaming out in pain.
But then I hear her cry, and it’s like a shock straight to my heart. The kickstart I need to bring me back. The moment the doctor places my baby girl on my chest and my skin touches hers—nothing else in the world matters. Not the past few months I’d spent questioning my choices. Or the twenty hours alone in labor, with no one but a doctor and a nurse named Rachel who I hadn’t met until today, holding my hand while I delivered a life into the world.
One day I will have to face those choices.
And it will suck.
People will be angry.
They’ll be upset.
Maybe they’ll even hate me.
I know he will.
And that will be their right, but it all seems so insignificant at the moment as I hold her in my arms.
“Well done, Mama,” Nurse Rachel praises with a wide grin as she wipes a towel over my daughter, removing all the gross stuff that I’m trying not to think about so I can enjoy the moment. She scrubs the towel over the baby’s hair, the tuft of blonde strands covering her head definitely not a reflection of my genes.
Because they’re so perfectly his.
“I love you,” I whisper, words I’ve been telling her repeatedly for months. I’ve never known this kind of feeling before. Love has been such a foreign concept to me ever since I was little, my parents making sure I knew their love was completely conditional and something I needed to earn.
Growing up that way made me what I would call a loner, but what others might call a bitch. It made me not want to get too close to people, to always keep them at arm’s length, afraid of caring for someone, only to have them not feel the same.
If my own parents can’t love me, then who the hell is going to?
Lily was the first.
The first to not be put off by my foul mouth.
The first to not be offended when I told her I hated people in general.
The first to see through my pain and love me harder because of it.
“I love you so much,” I whisper again, brushing my thumb gently over her head. Maybe I was hoping she would hear them so often she would believe them. And when I have to explain to her in the future why I did what I did, that just maybe she won’t hate me.
Maybe that’s a little too hopeful.
Looking down at her, I can’t help but wonder how she was tucked up in my stomach just minutes ago, and now she’s stretched out across my body, her little legs spread across my belly and her head lying right over my heart. Her tiny body rises and falls, but she stays completely still and quiet, and for a second, I freak out, looking up at Nurse Rachel with wide eyes.
“Is she okay? She’s not making any noise.”
Nurse Rachel chuckles softly, continuing to clean her off before pulling the hospital sheet up over both of us. “She is absolutely fine. She’s happy listening to your heartbeat and your breathing. It’s comforting for her. Something she was used to before being dragged screaming into the world.”
I clear my throat softly, trying to fight the well of tears that begins to surge. “Oh.” My baby girl lets out a soft cry, and I instantly raise my hand to her back, patting it softly and making soothing shushing noises. “It’s okay. You don’t have to cry. I’m here.”
I will always be here.
I will never leave you.
“Does our little one here have a name?”
She does.
She already has his hair and his eyes, but I want to give her something else that not only honors Noah but also represents me in a way too. “Dove,” I answer, unable to keep myself from smiling as I say her name out loud for the first time. “It was a dove that showed Noah there was new life and hope for the future after he saved his family and the animals on the Ark.”
It was the superhero part of Dove’s name that was all Noah. Always out there saving people, putting his life on the line constantly to protect and serve, and doing the right thing no matter the cost.
Whereas the hope for the future part of Dove’s name, that was for me.
She makes things look a little brighter.
She makes me want to keep soldiering on, to keep fighting through—not an easy feat when there have been many times I’d wondered whether it was really worth waking up tomorrow.
A warm tear slides out the corner of my eye and down the side of my face.
“That’s beautiful,” Nurse Rachel whispers, using the corner of the plastic-like hospital sheet to dab away the raw emotion before clearing her throat. “Well, Mama, let’s get Dove all cleaned off and wrapped up in some clothes, ready for her first feed.”
“Okay, but I don’t really know what the hell I’m doing… dammit! I need to stop saying hell.”
Nurse Rachel giggles softly. “One thing at a time, Mama.”
I nod and clear my throat. “Can you stick around and help?”
“Nowhere I’d rather be.”
