Madeline and I

Chapter One:

The night shift, the one shift everyone hates. Especially when a family that consists of two hormonal teenagers and a loving husband await your presence at home.

“Tough night?” Rebecca, my best friend asks me as she walks through the hospital doors for the beginning of her own shift.

“You could say that” I chuckle as I put on my black cotton coat.

 “Any births?” She questions as she cares for the babies once they are born, whilst I help deliver them and make home visits to the mother’s homes.

“Identical twin girls on ward B, room five and were born a minute apart” I answer as I finish signing my signature on the sign out sheet, but not before ending my sentence with a desperate sigh. Yes, I have two children at home. But they are not biologically mine or my husband’s. We adopted our identical twin boys Matthew and Jace, when they were both six years of age and now they are sixteen. Now don’t get me wrong, I love them both so much it physically hurts, but there will always be this longing feeling to hold my own child the moment it is born. To experience that overwhelming mixture of emotions that wash over you like a tidal wave, when you hear your child’s first cry.

Yet, it is exactly those things that I will never be able to experience because I can not carry a baby full term without it miscarrying. How many miscarriages have I experienced? Five.

Each baby that I miscarried became even more painful and emotional than the previous one.

“Sam? You okay?” Rebecca asks, distracting me from thoughts.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m going to go on home to Leo and the boys before they all go to bed” I say as I get my car keys out so that as soon as I am outside, I can get straight into my car and drive on home.

“Perhaps you and Leo could try IVF?” She suggests as I begin to walk towards the hospital doors. “We tried it once, but it was unsuccessful” I answer, turning around to face her.

“Give it one more shot, you never know what may happen” She says with a genuine smile before being called to her work station to take care of new premature baby.

“I’ll talk to him about it later” I shout after her, before making my way towards the exit doors again.

Suddenly, I am thrown into cold blinding blizzard as I make my way towards my Clio. The wind blows like a swirling storm, similar to the mental storm that is progressing inside of my head. However, just as I reach my car and about to get inside of it. I hear a diminutive scream coming from the distance. Swiftly, moving my head in the direction of where the scream came from as the mothering instinct takes over me. I scan the area for any sign of danger, but the only sight that confronts me is the pitch black streets that are lighted by a few dim light bulbs from the street lamps. Or at least that is the only sight that confronts me, until the faint sight of a little girl running towards me waving her arms in the air as if she was a bird about to take flight comes into the scene. This girl can’t look any older than five, so why is she out so late at night and screaming in such fright? But the answer is soon clear as a man who looks as if he is in a heavily drunken state, runs behind her whilst yelling “Come back here you brat”

Who would talk to a child like that? Let alone have a child running away from them whilst in such a state. That itself is the sign of danger.

“Please do not let that horrible man have me” The young girl practically whispers whilst tears flow down her cheeks. But before I have the chance to ask her a question or even answer her, the drunken man is standing right in front of me. The mixed scent of whisky and beer is radiating off of him. Not even Leo drinks that much when he goes out on the town with his best friend, Zack.