Never Truly Living

Chapter 10

Vesper's sleep that night was restless, and as the pains of labor became more frequent and stronger, she found she could no longer stay in bed. So she got up, even though it was barely five in the morning and the city was still covered in darkness. She walked around the flat, only stopping to lean against the nearest wall or counter until the contractions passed. After some time the pains become so much that she could barely walk, making her bend her in half, unable to think and barely breathe. In between each contraction, she began to get her supplies ready, boiling the scissors and string and placing them on a pile of towels.
She breathed through the worst of the pain, rocking her pelvis, moaning softly. She didn't know how much time had passed and was shocked to look up and see that the sun had risen, and that the clouds that had covered the sky the day before were now a thin mist.
She stood at the window watching as the colours changed and the sky brightened, the beautiful display of colors helping keep her mind off the painful contractions, coming closer together, and allowing her very little time to recover.
A particularly strong one ripped through her as she stood at the window, and she had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She doubled over, struggling to continue breathing as the muscles constricted.
When it was over she opened her eyes to discover her legs and the carpet beneath her were soaking, her waters had broke. She looked at the dark spot beneath her for a few seconds, breathing deeply, and turned to grab the towels and supplies off the counter and making her way to the bathroom.

She ran herself a bath, another contraction hitting her as the bathtub filled. She was all too happy to slip into the warmth of the water, the heat calming her.
The buoyancy was exactly what she needed, allowing her to bend and flex her hips, and she soon found that she could not resist bearing down when the pain hit, pulling her knees up on either side of her and pushing hard.

From that point on she didn't remember much, the increasingly strong and close contractions making her vision and mind foggy. The instinct for her to push was so strong she could concentrate on nothing else as she felt her first child moving down through her body. Time ceased to matter, her body seemed to act of its own accord.
After a time, a burning pain registered and she looked down to see the first baby's head crowning, shock momentarily bringing her out of the daze. She reached down to feel the top of its skull, a dusting of wet dark hair soft beneath her fingers. Her first contact with her first child filled her with relief and wonder.
She pulled herself up onto her knees just before another contraction began and she could only push through the burning pain, moaning as her first child's head exited her body. She reached down as she pushed, supporting the baby's head as it turned to the side, its shoulders following, albeit stubbornly.

She gave another hard push and watched as her child's shoulders cleared, and the baby turned face-up, now out to its waist. She felt all breath leave her when she saw its face for the first time, seconds later she reached down without thinking and grasped the baby beneath the arms, pulling firmly but evenly, and she felt as though everything dropped out of her as her daughter entered the world.

Her daughter was born, her arms and legs moving vigorously in the water, a gush of brownish fluid following her out of the birth canal. And as she held her, stunned, she opened her eyes under the water, and Vesper saw that they were bright, sky blue, like James'.
She lifted her out, cradling her to her mother's chest, and as her lungs breathed air for the first time she let out a wail, strong and loud, and Vesper found herself laughing and sobbing at the same time.
She could have sat there all day, clutching her daughter to her, and calming her cries. But she felt another contraction rip through her and felt the urge to push again. She placed her daughter on one of the soft white towels she had laid out, and bared down to deliver her second child. Soon, her son was born, a dusting of dark hair on his head as well, and the same bright sky blue eyes as his sister and father. She brought her daughter back up to her and held the two of them. Together for the first time since they had left her womb.
Vesper knew that she could have stayed there holding her son and daughter forever, but soon the water began to cool and she knew she must get out of the bath, placing her son on the other soft white towel she'd lain out. She quickly tied off their surprisingly tough purplish white umbilical cords, cutting them, and just like that they were separated from her. She wrapped a towel around each of their tiny bodies, picking them up and cradling them to her as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub. She could not take her eyes off their tiny faces, her son's blue eyes now closed, secure and warm in his mother's arms, and her daughter's closing slowly. She barely registered the delivery of the placentas, pulling the massive purple organs out and placing them in a very large plastic bowl she'd taken out of the cupboard.
She looked at them curiously for a few seconds, the network of dark arteries that webbed out over it, these things that had nourished her son and daughter for all these months, and left the bathroom. She was bleeding now, and would, she knew, for the next few weeks as the wound the placentas had left on the inside of her womb slowly healed itself.

Once she had clothed her bottom half, she settled on the bed with her son and daughter, placing them on a pillow in her lap. She brushed her son's cheek softly and his head turned toward her chest, and with startling strength for someone so small and new, he quickly latched on and began taking his first meal. She gently moved her daughter so that she could eat as well, and she latched on with equal strength.
She watched the two of them in awe, caressing the soft hair on their heads that, now dry, her son's had lightened considerably while her daughter's had stayed dark. She smiled at the two of them, in complete disbelief that they had come from her, had only mere hours ago been happily enveloped in her womb, and now they lay before her, two little people who breathed and moved.
They were no longer the genderless fetuses that moved inside her, they were her son and daughter, and she thanked the fates for the ease of their births, for their healths, vigour and hearty appetites. It had been a perfect entry into the world, negated only by the absence of their father, which, as she fell more and more in love with this new life of hers, she thought about less and less.
James was not here, no, but as her son and daughter finished their meals and she sat them up in front of her, gently patting their tiny backs, she found that it did not hurt as she thought it would. His absence would always be palpable, but with her son and daughter to focus on, it was less profound.
Soon she would have to clothe them in the tiny clothes and the diapers that she'd bought, clean the stumps of cord that still hung out of their navels, tied off with string. But as she laid them down beside her on the soft sheets, reclining so that her face was inches from them, watching the two of her as they fell asleep, she thought very little of the future.
It was close to noon now, and the exertion of the morning began to catch up with her, the hormones that had been released filling her with a calm like no other. She drifted off, her son and daughter's tiny faces the last thing she saw before sleep took her.