Date Of Birth

Baby's Breath

The cold air causes her skin to tighten, as her belly had two days ago.
Tighten, relax. Tighten, relax. Contractions. Too early. Way too early.
She stamps her feet, blows on her hands, watching her breath crystallize and disappear. Fear stops her going back inside. It's not cold enough for tears to freeze on her cheeks, but they rest there, halfway down.
"It's happening," she'd cried to Mike. "The baby's coming."
"Can't be, must be Braxton Hicks, Lou." He'd pretended to ignore it, but it wasn't going away. She knew it was for real. He turned over, snuggled deep under the duvet, returning to his dreams. Indulgent, pre-baby dreams of freedom.
"We have to go," she urged him.
He was disorientated when he rose, unsteady on his feet. Not ready. They weren't ready.
The had taken nothing with them. There were no bags packed, not yet. Their breath misted the windscreen. He cleared it with a sweep of his gloved hand, but her deep, ragged breaths soon hid the the world again. He was rushing, believing her now.
It was supposed to be spring, their baby's birth day. Yes, still cool in the morning, dew on the ground, maybe even the occasional frost. But warmer than this.
But the baby hadn't waited for spring. She had been born early. Fighting for breath. They'd tried to stop her coming, the doctors, but they couldn't.
"Her lungs aren't developed," they said, once Lou had released her into the world with a long sigh. "She will need help."
They'd taken her away. That's all they'd known of her in those moments after birth, that she was a girl. And that she was tiny. And that she hadn't cried. That's what you expect, isn't it? The cry, immediately after birth. It tells you your baby is safe. Lou had sneezed when she was born, her Mother said, the midwife had laughed.
There was no laughter when Lou and Mike's baby was born. Just silence, as the whole room held it's breath. waiting.
"She'll be taken to a warm room," they said. Lou smiled at Mike, a cautious half-smile - that was good, wasn't it? Like she was back in the womb she'd left too early, safe again.
"She's poorly," the midwife whispered. "Quite poorly, but getting the best care. You can help her too. Speak to her. Express your milk."
The milk only came in the tiniest of amounts. Lou sobbed at the amount; how difficult it was to release even that.
"That's all she needs," the midwife said. "Does she have a name?"
She didn't. Lou shook her head. That had been their next task, a sweet one, deciding on names - making a list. They would struggle to agree - it was the way they were.
The warm room is oppressive. The tubes, the machines, the tiny baby lying akimbo. Lou knows she should connect with her, understands the importance of bonding. She's read the books. But she can't. Not now. She walks slowly to the door, leaving Mike and their baby behind. He doesn't call her back. She hopes he understands.
Is she already being a bad mother?
She finds a space on the bench in the hospital garden, and is soon joined by a shivering man wearing a heavy coat over his hospital gown. He offers her a cigarette. She declines.
"What you in for?" he asks, blowing smoke rings. "No, don't say, let me guess."
Leave me alone, Lou wants to say, please. But she doesn't. She tunes out his voice and gazes into the landscaped space, beautiful in the summer no doubt, almost bare now.
"I know, you're a visitor. You don't look like a patient."
Lou doesn't reply.
"Hope it's not bad news," he says, kindly, before heading back indoors. She should thank him, but he's gone.
Is it bad news? Is she a patient or a visitor? She's glad to be alone. Away from Mike, the staff, the baby. Their baby. She needs to think of her as their baby, to begin making plans, investing in her future. But how can she, when she may not have one?
There are pots in the corner of the garden. Put out too early, Lou thinks. Still the danger of frost. Just the smallest tip of green pushes through the surface of the soil. She'd have kept the pot indoors for a few more weeks, to harden them up. Not possible in a hospital she guesses. Other priorities.
Her fingers are blue, purple at the tips, the colour of their baby's skin when she was born. She rubs them together, making them pink again. They tingle as the feeling returns. She stares at them, turning them over. They are empty. There's an absence, something missing.
She must go back inside. She's been out here too long. She glances back at the pots before the door closes behind her, hoping the bulbs will survive.
She hesitates before entering the room; her face close enough for her breath to mist the glass. As a child would, she writes in the mist, then glances through the swirls.
There's a space in the incubator where their baby used to be. No Mike either.
"Lou," his hand touches her shoulder. She catches her breath; she can't hear what he is about to tell her. She can't.
"They've moved her to the cool room, just now. They came just after you left to take her. Crisis over, we hope, they think. She's a fighter, our girl."
Tears again, this time the warmth allowing them to trickle down to her chin and fall onto her chest. Tears and deep, heaving breaths.
"Take me to see her?" Lou asks once the heaving has subsided.
Mike's arm is around her shoulder now, and he takes her to their baby. The tubes are still there, and the machines, but she is pink now, warm in the cooler room. And her chest rises and falls without help, her baby breaths rapid. Lou sits beside her. Touches her finger through the opening in the glass.
They can name her. Baby's breath, that's what she thinks, but that doesn't translate well. Gypsophila. Lou smiles. She can tell Mike later, they will laugh about that, in time.
"Let's call her Iris," she whispers.
Mike nods, no argument.
Their daughter has her name.