‘I…’ I can’t manage much more. My eyes flutter closed. The world feels too much. I fall asleep.
When I wake up again, I feel more focused, the memories that felt so disparate and strange starting to come together into an unsettling whole. I missed it all – everything I had looked forward to and longed for – the labour, the delivery, my darling, squalling newborn placed on my chest, that important skin-to-skin contact I’ve read about, how you need to breastfeed right away… How long has it even been? I turn my head and see that it’s dark outside.
‘Milly, you’re awake.’ I open my mouth to speak, but only a croak comes out. ‘Here, let me get you some water.’
Matt hurries to fill a glass from the pitcher by my bed and then holds it to my lips. I try to swallow, but most of it dribbles down my chin. I feel utterly helpless.
‘How are you feeling?’ Matt’s eyes are shining and he looks so excited. I can’t muster a millionth of his emotion, and I barely manage to shake my head. ‘Do you want to see her, Milly? Alice. Our daughter. She’s beautiful.’
Alice. The name we chose, but for some reason it feels unfamiliar now. Everything does. I feel so disorientated, as if my brain has separated from my body. I don’t know who I am anymore. I certainly d
on’t know who Alice is.
‘What… time is it?’ I finally manage. I don’t know why I ask that first. Perhaps I just need something to ground me in this present reality.
Matt looks surprised, and then a little disappointed. He checks his watch. ‘It’s almost seven o’clock.’
Seven o’clock. Eight hours since I was awake with Anna, cradling my bump, bracing myself for what was ahead. It feels like forever. ‘Where’s Anna?’
Matt looks even more discomfited, as if he can’t understand my questions, how I need to remind myself of these facts. ‘I… I don’t know. She went for a coffee a couple of hours ago. She wanted to give us some time alone.’ I nod slowly. ‘I texted Jack too, he’s back from France, and all our parents, of course. He wants to stop by later tonight and your mum and dad are hoping to visit tomorrow morning…’
I stare at him, numb to everything, even the pain blazing through me. Everything has happened and I haven’t been a part of any of it, not even my baby’s birth. My baby. The words roll around like marbles inside my head. Do I really have a baby?
‘Milly…’ A touch of impatience to his voice now. ‘Don’t you want to see Alice?’
I’m not sure I can make any other response, and so I nod. Of course I want to see her, and yet I’m terrified. Nothing feels the way I expected to, least of all myself.
‘I’ll ask the nurse to bring her here,’ Matt says.
I must have drifted off, because when Matt returns with a nurse and plastic bassinet on wheels, I startle awake.
‘It’s good to see you awake, Milly,’ the nurse says, although I don’t recognise her. How does she know my name? I feel as if I’ve entered some alternate dystopian reality, and while I can remember most of the day before they put me under, it still feels distant, separate from myself, from my present.
‘Here she is,’ the nurse says cheerfully, and wheels the bassinet close to me. There is a baby inside of it.
‘Isn’t she gorgeous, Mills?’ Matt whispers, enthralled by the sight of the tiny creature wrapped in white, looking wizened and red and strange.
I blink and stare, knowing I should feel something. Wanting to feel something. Joy, or at least relief. But I feel numb, and underneath that, like freezing water beneath black ice, something dark is swirling around – fear, or something worse?
‘I’ll just leave you two alone for a few minutes,’ the nurse says. ‘Have some bonding time.’
She tiptoes away while we both stare at the baby. What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to feel? I know, in a distant, abstract way, what emotions I should feel, what words I should say, but they feel so far away. I can’t even pretend.
‘Milly,’ Matt asks gently. ‘Do you want to hold her?’
‘I don’t know if I can.’ I gesture to my stitches. ‘I can’t do anything, Matt.’
‘Let me hold her to you,’ Matt says, and inexpertly but carefully he picks up the baby from the bassinet. I can tell by the way he cradles her head he’s done it before. How many times has he held her? Has Anna held her? And even Jack? I am the last to this party; I feel like a fake. Look at you. You’re not a real mother. No matter how hard you tried.
Matt inches over to my bed, Alice suspended over me. She is asleep, but she stirs as he moves her. It’s an awkward angle, and after a second she lets out a tiny, mewling cry of protest. Matt quickly puts her back in the bassinet.
‘Sorry, that wasn’t great,’ he mutters. ‘But you can hold her soon, I’m sure. The nurse said you could, anyway…’
‘It’s okay.’ I turn my head a little bit away. ‘I don’t want to.’ As soon as the words are out, I know I shouldn’t have said them. I shouldn’t have thought them. ‘I’m just feeling a bit out of it still,’ I say, and I close my eyes, because maybe then Matt won’t ask me any questions.
I must fall asleep again, because a little while later I wake up, and I am alone in the room. No Matt. No baby. Outside, the sky is black and starless, and the hospital ward seems quiet. Silent, in fact. I can’t hear anything, not even murmuring voices in the distance, and I am suddenly filled with a wild panic. Has Matt left me here? Has he taken Alice and gone?
I struggle to a sitting position, even though it makes my midsection burn. I don’t think I can walk, not without assistance, but I still try, swinging my legs out of the bed, my feet hitting the cold tile floor. I let out a gasp, icy sweat prickling on my brow and between my shoulder blades. I can do this…