Destined

VIII

9:04am

No one had ever told her how difficult it would be to watch your child get poked with needles. Nobody.

Needles after needles. He had to get struck thrice. Two for the much needed vaccines and one for a blood draw. It was terrible. She swore he was the loudest baby and was certain that all the other mothers were cursing at her. But she couldn't care less about them because, just like their baby, hers was scared.

Even though this wasn't the first time that Noah got poked and prodded and even though this wasn't the first time she watched him get poked and prodded, it still felt like the first. Like when he was first born on that early March morning. He was on a ventilator and covered in tubes and plasters and was given shots of steroids for his lungs to develop. All she felt then was guilt. Guilt. She was at fault. It was her doing that he came three months too early. If only she hadn't listened to her mother - till this day, she hasn't got a clue why she allows Bunny to get to her - to work that night, he wouldn't have been here at twenty seven weeks, weighing a mere two pounds.

She was working that night because Bunny got her clients who has a thing for pregnant women, much like herself, and were willing to pay her a thousand dollars. But ultimately, it was her fault for allowing Bunny to talk her into it in the first place.

No one had ever told her the agony she has to endure at watching the seething process while being absolutely helpless in it all. Nobody.

It's thin and relatively small and surely wouldn't feel anything to her - a mastered associate in the art of poking - but Noah, he's just a baby, an infant. It has to be painful and terrifying for him. Even now, at just the thought of a needle going through his unmarred skin brought tears to her eyes.

No one had ever told her that the more or less two minute procedure, which were just mainly tears, would be much more traumatic for her. Nobody.

Because once it was over and once Noah held out both of his small hands, whimpering for her, and once she gathered him into her arms, feeling a powerful rush of protectiveness - motherhood is instinct for the most part - he was fine while she was left to face the wrath of reality and was speechless as she walked out of the clinic.

Difficult.

She've had a difficult morning to say the least.

9:32am

Sighing, it's barely even halfway through the day and she's already spent. She glanced down at Noah who was now fluttering his eyes close as he sucked on a pacifier.

Thank goodness he was been given a clean bill of health and she was relieved when Dr. Montgomery said that his asthma hadn't progressed. Truth be told, she was actually leaning more towards the fact that it had because lately, he's been having quite the trouble breathing.

He was given a shot to each leg which seriously pissed him off and his tiny chest still heaved with the occasional sob.

This appointment wasn't like the others though. He didn't cry from the very beginning like he always would when they step foot into the cold clinic. It was like he knew where they were, he could sense it, and was over screaming about it, and she most definitely wasn't complaining about that. He also didn't cry when she had to take his clothes off and lay him on the cold scale to get weighed and measured.

And in this particular visit, his cries were somewhat different. Not a needy cry or a cry of pain but anger instead.

He was angry at her.

Her baby was angry at her. Angry. She still can't get over that fact.

She remembered his big pale blue eyes looking straight into her when he realised he was about to get stabbed with a needle, bursting into tears then.