Waiting For You

Chapter 1 - Separation and Despair

Sara breathed in as she grasped the unclean sheets. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the lame cussion she had as pillow, breathing in and out. The moment she had felt her first contraction a little after dinner time, Sara had laid on her bunk and wept silently, not because she was in pain, not because she was scared, because she had felt a deep despair at the thought of spending the last few hours with her baby. As soon as it would come to the world, she knew it would be snatched from her.

Sara had ignored that fact for the past seven months, the doctors, some inmates, all told her not to be attached to the baby. But Sara couldn't understand how she could do that, she was already so in love with her baby before she stepped into Miami Dade.

And even if she hadn't been, her baby was the only thing that kept her going through the horrors she saw in prison. Whenever she would be frightened to death she would hold onto her stomach and felt the little life inside her and it brought her a peace she didn't knew could exist.

Each time she missed Michael so much that she wanted to sob and never get up, her baby had made a movement, a kick, or just shown it's presence in the form of her growing stomach and her heartache was healed away. Because she knew she had a piece of Michael with her.

Sara avoided acknowledging the fact that her baby would be taken from her, she ignored it. But the moment her labour had started, she felt like someone was ripping a part of her soul. How would she live without her baby? Sara clutched desperately onto her stomach, as if it could keep the baby from leaving the safe walls of her womb.

As the hours passed and the contractions increased in frequency and intensity, her panic and despair had led her to feel a strange kind of peace. She was being selfish in wanting to keep the baby in this dirty, inhuman place. Sara recalled the fear that never left her heart during the past months, the fear that someone will hurt and kill her baby.

Now she realised, she could be at peace, because her baby would be with Michael, it will be safe. Warm, in Michael's loving arms, like she had longed to be all this time. She felt okay, she felt at peace. As long as Michael and her baby were fine, safe and together she would be okay too, because she loved these two more than anything in the world. Sara even smiled, relief washed over her at the thought of her loved ones being safe.

The baby would be okay because god, there was nothing more safe and warm than Michael's arms, and Michael would be fine because there was nothing more reassuring and appeasing than holding onto this tiny being. She knew both the feelings and if they had that, they had everything.

They had waited till she almost passed out on her bunk, as a doctor she knew squating and walking would help the process but her cell mate had complained about her shifting position in her bottom bunk and making the top bunk move too. Brenda wasn't part of gangs, but she was none the less menacing and Sara woved nothing would happen to her baby so close to the end, not because of her.

She laid as still as she could, holding onto her stomach and controlling her breathing. Eventually closing her eyes shut and biting onto her lips when she felt the pain might cause an involuntary whimper to leave her lips.

Early in the morning, an inmate had reported her condition, complaining about her screams when all that Sara did was moan in her pillow to muffle. She was sweating and breathless when the guards took her to the van to get her to the downtown clinic.

The pain was ripping her insides but Sara was at peace, everything would be okay now. She refused the staff's help, no doctor was granted to her, but she refused anyone to touch her.

She was a doctor, much more competent than the clinic staff and she wanted to be at peace while she gave birth. Sara couldn't make the guards disappear, nor could she make the handcuffs linking her to the bed disolve, but she wanted this moment to be a beautiful one, she didn't wanted to be like this but if she could just ignore everything and focus on her baby she would be fine.