I waited and waited to get back to my room and when I did I waited and waited for a nurse to tell me I could see my daughter. I only waited for less than thirty minutes in my room, but after having to stay in the delivery room to be stitched and taken care of it felt like an eternity. Soon Kacey came in with a wheel chair and I held my shaking hands in my lap as I was wheeled down to the neonatal intensive care unit. She let Nat push me down the hall but my mom wasn't allowed to come with me yet.
The NICU wasn't as I had expected there wasn't just a small room with one baby bed in it but rather a large room with multiple baby beds and curtains separating them. Kacey left after another nurse showed me to a what she called an 'Isolette' which was basically a clear plastic enclosed bed where my baby lay.
"They didn't get a chance to ask you because you were unconscious."the nurse started "What's her name?" I looked down at my baby daughter, she had tiny canulas attached through her nose and tiny IVs on her feet. It made me tear up. She didn't look like an Abigal and she didn't look like a Claire either. Now that I saw her, her tiny body. I held my hand up to the plastic. She looked like an August. August Finnley Pierce. "If you need some time-"
"No, um."I look up at Nat. "She looks like an August, don't you think?"
"What do you think about Augustine?" he smiled down and looked back at her.
"Why do I even bother?"I laugh and then I stop. Serious as I look back at her. "Augustine Finnley Pierce." I look up at the nurse, she smiles.
"That's wonderful." she says.
"Can I hold her?" she smiled.
"Of course." I turned back to my pink skinned baby.
They had explained to me that she wasn't breathing well on her own and that she had to have a nasal canula and of course she had on a heart monitor as well. This nurse whom was called Ross paged another nurse to help out.
While I waited, I put my hand through the isolette's arm hole and held her little hand. She lay blinking, as she stared up at the ceiling. "Hello baby..." I sang. I felt Nat's hand lay on my shoulder. She had a tiny hat on her head and a diaper that was a little too big, with yellow straps on the side. We had matching little hospital bands and her little IV on her foot looked like it was hurt if she even moved slightly. My heart started to pound as I realized the second nurse had come in and I moved my hand away from the incubator. They both removed the top and started to untangle all the 'wires' and started to lift August slowly, making sure nothing was pulling on the IV or canula. That's when she started to whine. Puckering her lips at first and making noises and then a loud cry, she did not like being moved.
But when they handed her to me and I held her for the first time, right there on my chest, something was different and nothing was different at the same time.
I was finally a mom.
YOU ARE READING
Skinny Love
Roman pour Adolescents'A teenage girl comes face to face with her past and must deal with its consequences.' Ella got pregnant at seventeen, by her best friend but he doesn't know about it. Instead of telling him she changed schools and took on a new life where no one kn...
