All Around Me | Jason McCann |

Chapter 55

| Savanna |

~4 months and 3 weeks later~

I don't know what I was expecting from childbirth. I thought it was going to feel like period cramps x 10000 and that's all that I had been told by women but this, this was a whole different level of pain. It felt like all of my muscles, organs, bones, were being crushed and twisted and pressed on. It felt like I was dying and coming back to life and the only thing I could do was scream in pain and agony. All I could think about was how I never wanted to experience this pain ever again. Seriously.

After 8 hours or excruciating pain, endless cries from not only me but also my best friends and father, screams by yet again, not only me, at exactly 12:55am, my baby boy was born.

The room was filled with his cries as I tried to focus my vision and breathing, calming myself down as I saw the midwife hover above me, instantly a feeling of warmth on my chest. I looked down, tears in my eyes as I took my first look at my baby who was calmer than expected. He had come early but not so early that it was a cause for concern but he was small and I felt like letting him go was going to somehow put him in danger.

I never wanted to let him go.

"He's beautiful Sav, perfect!" My dad exclaimed as he caressed his cheek, tears in his eyes as he gazed at the baby like he was an angel on earth which actually, he was.

After a few seconds, the midwife took him to do the usual clean up I guess, the umbilical cord, the weighing and everything else and before I know it, he was wrapped up in a baby blue blanket and hat and in my dads arms.

You would be surprised how alive you felt after labour, seeing your child brought a different kind of energy to you.

But when the door opened and my expectation of one of my friends walking in, I was left in more shock than happiness.

Jason.

He stood talk at the door, his eyes looked tired and dull as his eyes landed directly on me, it was like we were in a trance and the only two people in the room and as I sat myself up, I watched as his eyes shifted from me and to my dad.

He looked down in to his arms, I watched his eyes soften, his body language went from stiff to relaxed as he stared at the baby in my dads arms; our baby. It was like in this very moment, I forgot that Jason was the one who left me. I forgot that he wasn't there at every ultrasound, at every milestone or a small kick in my stomach. I forgot that he left at a time where I was in so much pain, where I was confused and needed only him to get me through it. I could only focus on this moment right here, our child and the love we shared so deeply that it resulted in a baby being born because of it.

I thought about our love.

"Can-can I hold him?" His voice broke, I had never ever heard of break or sound so powerless, he sounded like he was defeated at the sight of him.

My dad looked over at me for an answer, the confusion on his face evident as he had just come face to face with Jason McCann, who was asking to hold my baby. It was then when I realised that he didn't know that Jason was the father. He turned back to look at Jason, clear anger in his face at the sight of him. This was the first time the two of them were meeting and I never thought this is how my dad was going to meet Jason, or the father of my child.

"Wh-what is going on?" My dad replied in a hushed whisper as he looked back at me. I felt like crying.

"He doesn't know?" Jason asked, I could feel him looking at me but I was too uncomfortable to look at either of them.