A rush of warm liquid puddles between my legs
then another gushes out
saturates the hospital bed
push the red button with the white outline of a nurse
“let’s see here, honey…yep, you broke your water”
it was too early, but the baby had almost come out way too early:
late December 24 weeks
1 in 3 chance of survival
was supposed to be late April
(now it’s) late March
30 days in the hospital on a foggy magnesium rollercoaster prevent labor from crashing ahead
one in 250 babies comes early
mine fights to join that select group
hours later, my swollen body contorts into a huge ball that some evil giant is squeezing with his
oversized hands
“you won’t believe it,” the doctor says — his gloved hand fishes inside of me
“the baby just grabbed my finger with his hand”
“statue of liberty” presentation
I don’t know what that means but any movement in the direction of giving birth stalls
then: the baby’s hand is starting to swell
“we don’t want a deformity; he has to come out”
come out, but how?
Cesarean
baby boy is yanked out of a ripped slit in my stomach
“breathe, breathe, breathe, baby breathe, you gotta breathe” the doctors and nurses plead
massaging my son’s 35-week-old tiny see-through chest
lungs take time to kick in
but once the little creature figures it out, he lets out the wail of a cat in heat
I still can’t tell the difference
between a baby’s cry and the howl of a cat
A former journalist, Kristen Henderson now writes flash, creative nonfiction, and an occasional memoir. When she was bored during the pandemic, she founded “Bright Flash Literary Review,” an online journal for flash, short fiction, and memoir. It’s a labor of love and she loves it. Kristen splits her time between her homes in Los Angeles, CA, and Lamy, NM, where the sky never ends.