A contraction hit hard and sharp, bending me forward.Kenzie and Maggie helped me through it.
And then everything blurred: hallways, bright lights, and those awful hospital gowns.
The delivery room felt both too big and too small.I gripped the rails of the bed as another wave crashed through me.Maggie brushed the hair from my forehead.
“It’s okay to cry,” she whispered.
“I don't need to cry,” I lied.
Kenzie snorted.“She lies when she’s scared,” she told the nurse.
“I’mnotscared,” I snapped between breaths.
Another contraction hit.
“Oh god, okay...I’m scared.”I cried out.
They laughed through their tears.
Hours passed, and Kenzie told me the waiting room was packed and that the nurses had tried to clear out the hockey team, but they wouldn't budge.How Eli was pacing outside my room, and how John was standing at the end of the hallway, waiting to meet his granddaughter.Adam and Chase were keeping the other moms at bay, but they would be here the second they were given the green light.
It felt like this moment was zeroed in on the pain and contraction and whispered support in between each hard breath.And when it was time, really time, my whole world narrowed to the sound of my own breath and their voices.
“You’re doing so good.”
“One more, Tessa.”
“Almost there.”
“Yes...like that...good girl....yes.Push, keep going...”
Then...silence.
One suspended heartbeat of silence.
And then...a cry.
A small, sharp, furious cry that cut straight through my bones and stitched something back together in the same breath.
“Look, Tessa,” Maggie whispered, voice trembling.“Look at your daughter.”
My daughter.
They laid her on my chest, warm and slippery and real.So real, I thought my heart might stop and burst all at once.She was tiny and pink and loud.Her fingers unfurled like petals against my skin.I kissed the top of her damp hair and everything, every grief, every ache, every jagged edge, pulled tight and then loosened all at once.
Maggie wiped tears from her cheeks.
Kenzie whispered, “Oh my, Tess…”
A nurse murmured encouragement I didn’t fully hear.
Because all I could see was her.
My baby.
My daughter.
Nate’s daughter.
