Women Giving | Birth [2021]

The clock on the nightstand blinked 2:17 AM when Elara felt the first real wave—not the teasing, Braxton-Hickory warm-ups of the past week, but a deep, oceanic pull that started at her spine and wrapped around to her belly like a slow, insistent tide.

By 5:00 AM, the waves had become surges. She’d drawn a bath, and the warm water cradled her as she knelt on the tiles, her forehead resting on the cool porcelain edge of the tub. Leo found her there, hair plastered to her cheeks, making a low, guttural sound she didn’t recognize as her own. women giving birth

But Elara wasn’t listening. She was counting ten tiny toes, ten perfect fingers. She was breathing in the new, milky scent of her daughter. Outside the window, the sun crested the horizon, painting the room in shades of rose and gold. The clock on the nightstand blinked 2:17 AM

They placed the baby on Elara’s bare chest. She was the color of a stormy sky, her face scrunched in protest, her tiny fists opening and closing like sea anemones. Elara looked down at the dark, wet hair, the cord still pulsing between them, and felt a love so fierce and so simple it erased every other thought. Leo found her there, hair plastered to her

The hospital room was dim, by her request. She wanted to see the sunrise. The midwife, a calm woman named Priya with silver-streaked hair, checked her progress. “Seven centimeters. You’re doing the work, mama.”