The First Joy

She felt the throb of her lifeline, so feeble now the time is nearing. 

Trickles of blood run down the inside of her thighs as the baby came. She had dreamt of this night, a year ago, when she had dreamt of holding a child in her arms – a child after so many years of being barren – a blessing to bring laughter and joy to their home. 

She had dreamt of his tiny hands and tiny feet, and how he would clutch at her with his tiny fists, and how he would cry. 

It had been many years now, almost ten years married without the blessing of children, and she had spent many nights questioning herself, and her role in the world – for wasn’t a woman defined by her ability to bring life through her womb; wasn’t it absolutely imperative that she join the swelling ranks of Motherhood? 

Her husband had been steadfast and gentle, and refused her to the clutches of those dark thoughts on those dark nights, and if it wasn’t for his patience, she would not have been the woman she was now. 

And after all those years – a miracle. 

A child, and she herself could scarcely believe it when she first felt the strange tightening of her womb the very first time, merely dismissed it as a turn of the stomach. But the sicknesses came more regularly, and she somehow allowed herself the possibility that it was more than just a turn of the stomach, and perhaps, her womb was not as barren as she once thought. 

And as the busy, harassed doctor smiled and told her the confirmation of her pregnancy, showed her the little entity on the ultrasound - oh how her heart leapt – and how her husband smiled in their shared joy! How different their lives seemed, to be full of meaning and a different future. 

She gasped as the pain came in waves and intensified, and she tried to breathe and remember what she had been taught. It would be difficult, they had said, because of her age and her first pregnancy, but the pain was sufferable, and she had gone through more. She tried to push and halfway laughed as she watched her normally steadfast husband pale and try not to faint at the sight of the blood and liquor pooling around her thighs. 

He was coming. 

Their little one.