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MAIA
Acrying baby. Check.
Leaky, sore tits. Check.
A sleep-deprived mum. Check.
Huh, it seems like I am a pro at this mothering gig. I never dreamed that at the ripe age of twenty-four I’d be a widow and a single mother. Eight months ago, I lost the love of my life, and a few days after that, I found out we were expecting.
A whirlwind romance ending in the death of my fiancé and the birth of our gorgeous little girl. Fate was cruel to my soulmate.
“Shh,” I soothe as I change her nappy. She’s not a happy girl, but unfortunately, I can’t feed her and change her nappy at once, no matter how much I wish I could. “It’s okay, Phoebe. Just two more minutes, and you can have all the boob you want.”
I dispose of the dirty nappy before getting settled in the bed with my nursing pillow. I haven’t bothered wearing a shirt unless we leave the house, giving her free rein. She latches almost immediately, and the tears stop as hungry suckles take their place. I wipe away the lone tear dripping down her cheek, a soft smile filling her face as I take in her clenched fists. Poor baby.
It’s very hard to distinguish whether she looks like me or Ryan in her facial features, but she’s most definitely got my dark hair. It’s something I was amazed to see on the scan and allegedly is the cause of all my heartburn during pregnancy.
True or not, I should’ve just invested stock in Rennie with how often I was buying them.
Once Phoebe is done on the left boob, I move her onto the right. We’re officially at cluster-feed o’clock, and it’s draining. Her prime time for this is 3am, rather than during the day, but I’m hopeful it won’t last too long. If Ryan were here… well, I have no idea what he’d have done.
Hopefully, he’d have brought me snacks and something to drink. He’d be there to hold her so I can have a wee in peace, and he’d soothe her whilst I have a shower that lasts longer than three seconds.
But he’s not. Because he’s dead. Because someone decided that drinking and driving was smart. Because someone decided after hitting my fiancé, they’d then drive over the top of him multiple times to make sure that he couldn’t survive and identify them.
My fiancé is dead, leaving my daughter without her father, because they didn’t want to call a taxi.
I try to burp my tiny human, blinking away the tears of my grief, but nothing comes up. I move her back onto the left because off she goes again, rooting as if her little life depends on it.
It’s adorable, even if it drains me.
“So, how is she doing?” Dr Thomas asks as he reads through the information from the nurses at the hospital and from the community midwife that has come out and visited us at home over the last couple of days. I’m not worried. Phoebe has passed all her checks in the hospital, and we had an easy birth with no complications.
She has dipped a little from her birthweight, but that’s to be expected, and we’ve got no issues with her feeding ability.
I glance down at Phoebe and grin. She’s so beautiful, so healthy, so mine.
It’s crazy to think that not even a week ago, she was inside me, kicking around and taking up all of the available space, and now… she’s real.
“She’s doing great,” I say with a tired smile.
“And how are you doing?” he asks, spinning around on the chair and giving me his full attention. Dr Thomas is a new hire at my GP surgery, and he’s quite young—a few years older than me, maybe. He’s got dark hair, often displaying a sardonic grin, and his eyes are a mahogany colour that are wise above his years. I’m not sure what puts me on edge about him, but something does. “How are you coping on your own, Maia?”
“I’m doing okay. It’s hard, but we’re doing good, aren’t we, sweetheart?” I say, turning to baby talk at the end when my tiny girl looks up at me with her little grey eyes.
“Do you have any support around you? Anyone who can assist with the hardships of parenting?” He sounds a little condescending here, and I don’t like the implication that I’m not enough for my child.
I was alone my entire pregnancy, but I survived through it, knowing I’d have her at the end. A link between me and Ryan forever.
The insinuation that I’m not enough breaks me because I already question it myself every day.
“I appreciate the concern, Dr Thomas, but we’re okay. I know where to go if I need help.” Which is Google because I really don’t have any physical help at all.
My… Phoebe’s dad was an only child with no family around—by choice—and my parents died a week after my eighteenth birthday in, ironically, a car accident. Ryan and I only had each other, and now… I only have Phoebe.
Dr Thomas nods slowly, a distrusting look in his eyes as his lips tighten into an upside down smile. We move on to the healthcare portion of the exam, and he is meticulous as he checks over my daughter. His attitude might not be great, but he seems to be a very good doctor. He weighs her, and she’s the same as she was yesterday when the midwife checked her, a healthy six pounds and eight ounces, and is happy that she’s responding well to the tests.
