My lungs won’t work.
I try to draw in breaths, but Ican’t. Fucking. Breathe.
Just like my little girl.
“Breathe, baby girl, come on,” Dr. Adams mutters fiercely from across the room, her hands moving fast. “Come on, fight.”
Every second is a knife to my chest. My mind is moving to places I don’t want it to.
What if she doesn’t cry?
What if she’s gone?
What if I have to have a funeral for both my husband and my daughter in the same week?
The silence grows unbearable.
A minute feels like a lifetime.
Finding an inner strength I thought had gone, I thrash harder, Ingrid and Lani straining to hold me down as my body wracks with sobs. “Let me go! I need her, Ineedher!” My voice is shredded, raw, unrecognizable.
But then…
… a sound.
Small at first.
Weak.
Then stronger.
Louder.
Relentless.
My heart thumps in my chest as a wail erupts from the warmer, piercing and defiant, roaring through the room like thunder cracking the sky wide open.
A gasp erupts from me as I collapse back against the bed, sobs bursting out of me, and I am shaking so hard I feel like I’ll shatter. Ingrid’s forehead presses into my temple, her tears mixing with mine. Lani is laughing and crying at the same time.
“There she is,” Dr. Adams says, her own voice ragged with relief. “There’s our girl.”
The nurses move quickly, checking her as they had her brother, their voices murmuring reassurances.
I can’t breathe.
Can’t speak.
All I can do is sob as I watch her tiny arms flail, her cry weaving into her brother’s, the two sounds braiding together like threads of the same soul.
“Katrina,” I whisper hoarsely. “Trina for short.”
Named after the storm that gave her father his road name.
The storm that shaped who he became.
And then, finally.Finally,they lay both of my babies against my chest.
Warm. Squirming. Breathing.
