By Ryan Babcock
In the bathroom, pregnant for the second time, Rosemary stared at the + on the plastic pregnancy test; she pondered the prospects of going through it all over again—during her first pregnancy she did what any excited new parent would do: she and her husband had the doctor tell them the sex so they could decide on a name together—Margot—and they decorated the nursery a pastel yellow, because she was to be their little light, at night they read to the child in her swollen belly and feigned interest in classical music, because a friend mentioned it soothed the baby; every night, Rosemary sought solace with her palm pressed against the swelling belly, feeling the gentle kicks—a connection to the burgeoning life within; yet pregnancy overwhelmed her, it cast doubt on everything her husband said, made her cry every time she saw children splashing through sprinklers or anytime her ice cream melted from the heat, and she became so hypervigilant of strangers that she’d stopped leaving her house for fear someone would slice her belly open and run off with her baby; she knew it was irrational, but she felt overpowered by a protective maternal instinct; then, one day, she got sick; afraid her baby would also get sick, she went to the hospital; they ran some tests and said it was nothing more than a common cold, the doctor wrote her a prescription and offered her felicitations on becoming a mother; she swallowed the medication like she was told; as the days passed, she felt something was wrong; the kicks slowed; they seemed to lose impact; eventually stopping altogether, which sent her into a panic; in the car, her husband called each of their parents and asked for them to meet them at the hospital; while they sped down the interstate Rosemary cried so hard she had to keep wiping snot with the back of her hand as she choked on every demand for her husband to drive faster and faster to the ER: there, they informed her she wouldn’t reach the end of her second term; the baby’s heartbeat had stopped; there had been a complication with the medication the previous doctor had prescribed; they needed to induce labor; the hospital staff went through the motions of delivery: providing her an epidural and instructing her to push until Margot was released; surrounded by their respective families, she held Margot in her arms, a fragile beacon bearing the weight of her maternal dreams; her tears blurred the baby’s body, making it look like Margot was reaching for her; part of Rosemary wished that were true, knowing it was a foolish wish; Margot, barely over a pound, had the same bulbous nose that Rosemary’s father had and the same extra-long second toe her husband had; they took photographs to commemorate the life that was meant to bring sunshine into the world; Rosemary was so disoriented, possibly even in a state of psychosis, that she thought the flash from the cameras was somehow Margot hugging her goodbye, her mother wiped Rosemary’s tears away for her, told her everything happens for a reason, which pissed her off, because she’d held her dead daughter in her arms for no good reason and no sentimental cliché would alter that opinion—so she sat on the mouth of the toilet for a long time, hoping it would swallow her whole, even when she made the effort to get up, her legs betrayed her, and she had to call her husband to carry her to bed; a lump formed in Rosemary’s throat as she told him she couldn’t suffer through a loss like that again; she didn’t want to get her hopes up that she could be a person who has a family; he told her to get some sleep, and they would talk more in the morning; but she didn’t sleep much that night: she had a nightmare she was the Angel of Death giving birth to a coffin, and her new baby’s ashes would sit on the mantel above the fireplace like Margot’s; when she woke, her body was slick, the sheets beneath her stuck to her skin, and she could hear her husband humming in the kitchen; without him there to talk her down, she made her choice: she wouldn’t keep it; he came in with a tray: oatmeal, strawberries, and a glass of water; he sat on the bed, placing his palm on Rosemary’s thigh; told her it was her decision, but he wanted to try one more time, and then they wouldn’t have to ever again; wouldn’t ever have to talk about it, if that’s what she wanted; grief’s claws sunk deep, but her husband’s optimism offered a fleeting respite; it provided possibility for another chance at motherhood; she wanted to be the accommodating wife, so, reluctantly, she acquiesced; and once again, they found out the sex of their baby—a girl they would name Aurora—they wouldn’t repaint the nursery, this time they would add flowers along the doorframe; at every prenatal check-up they cautioned her about her blood pressure, but Rosemary explained to them how every day she was swaddled in anxiety over fear her baby’s heart would stop and it wouldn’t go away until Aurora was in her arms, alive; five weeks before the due date, her water broke around midnight; she denied to her husband that she was in labor and insisted visiting the hospital was unnecessary, but he ignored Rosemary and argued with her to get out of bed and into the car until she consented; since she had Margot, they’d moved states for a fresh start, so on the drive to the hospital, she called and asked her parents and sister to fly out; her husband did the same; it became real for Rosemary and her husband when the hospital staff surrounded her, no other family present yet; but they all began flooding in to the state; first her parents; then his parents and siblilngs; then her sister; they all waited in the lobby, anticipating Aurora’s birth; after thirteen long hours of labor, Rosemary pushed Aurora out into the world; she had a full head of hair, the same bulbous nose, those same toes, and she was yellow; so yellow that the doctor explained to them how common jaundice was for premature babies; they would be sending her to the NICU to sleep under a blue light that would flush the bilirubin toxins from her body; her family arrived at the hospital and celebrated Aurora, told her about her sister Margot; after two sleepless nights in the hospital, the doctor cleared Aurora to leave with Rosemary and her husband under one condition: Aurora must come back the next day to recheck her bilirubin levels; however, when Aurora came back to the hospital, her numbers were frighteningly high, so they tell her, her husband, and both their families they must keep her overnight; it didn’t matter how many times the doctor told her not be concerned with the near zero chance of death, she was concerned that it wasn’t zero; her once-steady legs buckled beneath the haunting possibility, and her husband caught Rosemary before she collapsed from grappling with the potential loss of another child; they were all anxious; her family was undecided on whether or not to keep celebrating or start mourning while they kept her and her husband from the bottom of rock bottom; while they waited for a call they all distracted themselves with card games, movies, chores…calling the tired nurses for updates; at dinner, Rosemary’s mother shared a story about Rosemary as a toddler; once, at a toy store, Rosemary was told no when asking for a new Barbie; in protest, Rosemary bulldozed Barbies off the shelf, then threw herself on the ground; banging her fists on the dirty tile, her red face streaming with crocodile tears; in a moment of desperation, Rosemary’s mother got on her belly, next to her daughter, and began to imitate her: flailing arms and legs, fake sobs; Rosemary stopped her cries immediately and looked at her mother with a furrowed brow, realizing her chicanery had been discovered; the word no became less triggering after that incident and her mother explained the whole experience as mortifying for her; Rosemary liked hearing stories of her as a child; it made her feel maternal in some way she couldn’t articulate; the call came two days later, they could finally bring Aurora home; both families packed themselves into two cars; when Rosemary held her baby in her arms, she watched Aurora’s little heart flutter through her yellowish skin; Aurora clenched her tiny fist around Rosemary’s finger, slowly opening her ocean-blue eyes to gaze at the woman she grew inside; despite this radiant joy of holding her second daughter, a profound love both for the baby she now had, and once had, crumbled and shattered within her; the world, for a brief moment, felt brighter, a deceptive glow swiftly overshadowed by the encroaching darkness of postpartum depression; her husband snuck up behind her, embracing Rosemary and Aurora; he craned his neck to kiss away the worry etched on her face, we’re not going to fail her, he reassured, his words a soothing balm; she nodded, momentarily believing in his promise after everything they’d endured together.
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Ryan Babcock is a Virginia-based writer and educator. He studies creative writing online at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension, and is pursuing an M.A.Ed. in ESL and Bilingual Education at The College of William and Mary. He thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2019. His poetry is forthcoming in Eunoia Review.