Robin; Kids at 19

12

12

It was the sixth of September when Courtney finally gave birth to Imogen. She had had to be induced because she was two weeks over due. The progress of her labor had taken a long time to accelerate, but finally, after seventeen hours of hard labor Imogen emerged into the world at half past eight in the evening, wailing in shock, at a healthy 7 pounds 3 ounces.

El and I were the only ones who had turned up to give Courtney support through her labor, which made me concerned about her once we all left the hospital. I wondered if her mother was okay or whether she was as temperamental as she had been over the summer. I tried to ask her about it several times but she brushed it off saying everything was okay and all she wanted to do was go home have a bath and sleep.

The first time I picked Immy up I knew she was mine. She just looked like me. Hardly any of Courtney had reached her face apart from the shape of her eyes maybe. I held her close, careful to support her head, and stroked the soft down that spiraled on her crown.

“Aren’t you just beautiful?” I murmured because it’s true. She let out a small whine and stretched her fingers against my chest. El peeped around my shoulder and gently traced her finger across Imogen’s soft cheek. She had silent tears running down her face.

“What’s wrong sweetheart?” I question, concerned.

She shook her head dismissively.

“Nothing. Well. You know. It’s moving, don’t you think? Meeting our daughter for the first time.”

“Yeah, I guess it is” my heart flutters slightly as El called her ‘Our Daughter’.

“Do you want to hold her?” I ask and she nods eagerly, proffering her arms to receive Imogen. I place her gently in El’s grasp and she cradles her tiny form with the utmost reverence and awe. She was literally struck dumb by amazement. I took a photograph of them both on my phone and posted it to Facebook with the caption ‘Daughter before our labor’. After a while I wish I hadn’t because my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing with notifications of people liking it and commenting but I left it up there hoping Noel would see it and call.

Courtney slept for the whole of the night and well into the morning but it didn’t really matter because the midwife who was attending to her showed Alayna and I how to change Imogen and how to feed and wind her also, as under the circumstances there wasn’t really much point in showing Courtney how to do it.

Just after the nurse had left to check on another patient Josie, our solicitor, showed up with an envelope of paperwork of which we had all agreed beforehand to sign, signifying Imogen was under El and I’s guardianship.

Courtney was very quiet when it came to signing her sections of the agreement but she didn’t hesitate to scrawl her name next to the various x’s Josie had marked for her.

 And then Imogen was ours. She was our daughter! Her birth certificate read as Courtney Evans being her mother and I, Robin Patrick, being her father but in the eyes of the law, the papers we signed meant that Alayna was officially her mother. How exciting!

Two days after Courtney was told she was okay to leave the hospital so after helping her pack up her few things I drove all four of us up from the Royal Infirmary in town –ever so carefully– to Courtney’s home in Mountsorrel where she eased her self out of the car and waved good bye to her baby and El.

I got out of the car to help her carry her stuff. When she opened her front door the stench of cigarette smoke hit me like a bus. She didn’t even seam to notice it but I assumed her mother was probably the culprit.

“Are you defiantly going to be okay?” I inquire as I place her bag inside the front door then retreat to the outside again, drawing in a lung full of untainted air.