“I am very sorry for your loss,” the OB gently says in the voice I have donned many times when delivering the same words to broken parents.
My mind is numb. I haven’t started processing this as a father. I’m still processing as a doctor. Going over in my head what the next steps are going to be. What recovery will look like for Nat.
But she’s crying.
She cries for the loss of our baby.
She cries for the loss of her future.
She cries for the loss of her chance to show her love.
She cries for the loss of never getting to feel unconditional love.
She cries for the loss of our baby girl’s life coming to a sudden halt.
She cries for the loss of never feeling her kicks.
She cries for the loss of being a mother.
Because right now to her, that's what this feels like. Permanent. Right now, she doesn’t see that although this baby was called home early, she can still be a mother. She is a mother. She can still love another baby.
Because this baby, our baby, is what she needs right now, and I can’t give that to her. I will never be able to give that to her. Something breaks in Nat at this moment. I wish I could tell her that breaking is not always a bad thing. Breaking is the chance to become someone new.
“Everett. Can we name her?” She is still groggy from the drugs, but I see her there. The scared little girl who was once my best friend. She has been gone for a while, but she’s here now.
The procedures are done.
The staff is gone.
The early morning is streaming through the window of her hospital room.
They kept her through the night to monitor her blood counts. She received one unit of blood, and they’ll redraw her counts in a few hours. And I haven’t left her side. I wouldn’t.
“Yeah, Nat. I think she needs a name.”
“I’d like to call her Aurora. It’s where we started…and where we ended, isn’t it?” Her soft voice is a whisper.
Where we ended.
“Yeah, Nat. It is.”
“Everett?”
I don’t answer. I just let our eyes meet.
“Our baby… She wasn’t going to change your mind, was she? You still would have chosen Leo.”
Even though it’s a question, she doesn’t ask it. She states it like a fact.
“Yeah, Nat.” I pause for a moment, needing to collect myself. “But that doesn't mean I wouldn’t have chosen you and Aurora. There is no competition, Nat. There never was. You and Leo are both incredibly important to me, in different ways. I could love you both. You are one of my best friends, Nat. You have been since we were in diapers. I never would have left you. But I’ll never leave Leo either. She’s my soulmate.”
Nat lets out a sigh and then places her hand to my cheek. “Then you need to fix things with her. I’m sorry that I caused discontent in your relationship. Not just now, but back then as well. I love you, Everett. I always will, but you’re right. I love you differently than Leo does. I think I’ve been pushed so long to love you and only you that I don’t know any different.”
This is the Nat I love. The kind one, the selfless one. The one who was lost for a while—the one that she only gives me.
“There’s my Nat. I was worried you’d forgotten about her.” I grin at her.
“I did. But honestly, it's so exhausting being the person they want me to be. I’m tired, Everett.”
