“One more! We’re almost there!” The nurse commands me and I follow her orders. One more push, just one more. We’ve been doing this for hours, we can do it just a little bit longer.
The relief is almost immediate. One minute everything is agonizing pain and the next it’s nothing but a dull ache. I collapse back against Tristan and let out a sob of relief the same time a different cry alights upon the air. I can barely lift my head, but I do it anyway. The nurse cuts the umbilical cord and is gently wiping my baby clean.
“It's a boy!” She declares and a moment of bitterness passes through my heart. ‘Why couldn’t you be a girl?’ I want to wail at the baby. “Do you want to hold him Dad?” The nurse directs at Tristan who looks shocked at the bestowment of the title. Of course you’re the father I want to berate him, but instead my attention is solely on the passing of the baby. The yearning must be clear in my face because the nurse squeezes my ankle, “We need to get you cleaned up first.” She says, “We still have the placenta.” She reminds me and I try to remember through the haze of exhaustion what she had told me to expect after the baby came. It doesn’t rightly come back to me, but I just do what she says and let her do the job we paid her to do.
The placenta comes and then goes. I barely register it at all. My attention is only on Tristan and our baby. ‘Our baby.’ I let the words swell around us and I see a rare smile crack across his usually cold exterior. He coos and awes at the little one.
The nurse wipes away the blood on me with a cold wash cloth. I never imagined that anything could be as blissful as the simple feeling of a cold wash cloth, but with each wipe I feel more like myself, still tired, but no longer like an animal covered in blood and sweat. When she’s done she carefully gets me to my feet and into the bed. It’s padded with scratchy-feeling towels, but being on the mattress is still better than being on the floor.
I watch as Tristan takes a step forward as if to help us, but then remembers that he has his hands full with the baby. He hovers nearby though which I find reassuring. I exhale slowly and have to fight to keep my eyes open. I’m not falling asleep until I get to hold him because I have to know. Sensing my determination Tristan gently hands the baby down to me. I cradle him to my chest. The nurse takes a reverent step back to allow me this moment.
I stare at the ugly little wrinkled baby that fusses and stirs as I settle him into place. Tears fill my eyes as his tiny hands bop against my chest and I find myself laughing at the sight of him. Yes, he was worth it. He was worth everything. My beautiful, precious baby.
“Did you decide on a name for him yet?” The nurse asks from the foot of the bed.
A name? I glance over at Tristan and see that he’s also taken aback. Neither of us had thought of a name for him. That’s not how we do things back home, but here our baby will have to have a name. He’ll have to live like a human.
I stare at his sweet, red face, “Mathew.” I say clearly. “His name is Mathew.” I don’t know why, but it just clicks into place. That’s his name. My son’s name is Mathew.
I pull my hand free from the twins as the relevant part of the memory comes to an end. That memory had been one of the few things my mother had left with me. I hadn’t thought much of it when I was little. I just had the vague sense that it wasn’t something for me as a child to have so I’d stored it away. Now as an adult though I cradle it as dearly as my mother had me.
“Okay, so you were born on Earth.” Kelsey mutters. She has a tough voice, but I can see her trying to blink away the tears that my mother had conjured from her.
“What happened to them?” Lainey asks from next to me. Her tears flow freely. Before I even open my mouth I can see that she already knows what I’m going to say.
“They're dead.” I tell them flatly.
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