The baby cried more. Loud and strong. Pink and furious.
“Yes you did!” Sterling held the baby up, wiping her gently with a waiting towel, then took her to a scale. Then he wrapped her in a blanket. “Baby girl. Right here. Six pounds, point five ounces. Twenty-one inches. Healthy. Nine Apgar score.”
Anna focused on the baby crying. “My baby girl?” Everything still felt raw and painful, but she only had eyes for the baby in Sterling’s arms. Perfect. Healthy. Born.
Carefully, Sterling handed her to Atlas. “I need to stitch you up some; stay still, okay Anna?”
Anna nodded, but her focus was elsewhere as Atlas gently lowered the baby on her chest. “Look at that. Ten perfect fingers and toes,” he said.
“Look how beautiful she is.” Nora was at her side, peeking over Atlas’s shoulder. “Oh I love her already. Good job, Anna cakes.”
She reached out her scraped hand groggily.That’s her?Her fingers gently brushed the blanket the little girl had been wrapped in. Her daughter’s cheeks were round and pink with hands clenched tight into fists up by her face. And she screamedas her entire body squirmed and kicked. She screamed at the world. Perfect and alive.
Anna let out a breathy laugh. “You’re so mad, huh? My angry baby girl. That’s just right. You be mad. You be as angry as you want.”
The baby squirmed on Anna's chest. She fumbled until Nora leaned over, helping guide the baby to latch to her breast. Only then did the crying stop. And the little fists, one by one, splayed out and relaxed.
Anna touched her little head, soft as she could. “You’re perfect.” She whispered up to Atlas, “Atlas, look?”
Atlas’s eyes were soft. “I see, Anna.”
She touched her baby’s head, her body shaking. Here. And safe.
Chapter forty-eight
Atlas
Atlas gazed down into the deep blue eyes of the baby girl, eyes that would change to brown with time and sunlight. “She really is perfect, Anna.”
The infant cried in her arms, making his neural mind ache. He touched her little hand, gently.
Anna instinctively transferred the baby to her other breast, asking Nora, uncertain, “Is that right?”
Nora helped adjust the position. “Yeah, it is. The first time being hungry made her cranky. Your milk isn’t in yet.”
Anna cooed. “So angry.”
Atlas assisted Sterling with clearing the room and cleaning up from the birth. Everything in him felt jittery, almost overcharged. He focused on Anna, committing the scene of her holding the squirming infant to his memory banks.
Sterling pulled off his scrubs. “Atlas, do you want me to do the newborn screenings?”
“Oh, right.”The idea of another doing them felt wrong, even if it was Sterling. “No, I will.”
Nora stood, stretching her arms. “Long night. I’ll go get Tilly and Simon, let them see? That will give you a moment together in the meantime?”
Zero cleared his throat.He was standing back by the doorway, eyes riveted to the baby. “I’ll take you, Nora. Let’s go.”
Sterling exited with them, and Atlas was alone again with Anna. But it was not just the two of them anymore.
“Look at her, Atlas,” She whispered. “Is she getting enough to eat?”
He gently touched the little girl’s cheeks. “Yes. You’ll make more milk in a day or so, but this is fine.” His mind assessed the baby as he ran the newborn scans.No jaundice I can see.They would need a small blood sample to be sure. The newborn testing protocols loaded in his vision, showing best practices from a century ago. Humans were thankfully the same, so everything still applied.
“Okay. It is just a little poke.” He took the baby’s foot in his hand, pricking the heel for the basic blood test. Focusing was difficult as the baby cried, but he collected the sample with steady hands. “I’m so sorry, baby girl.”
“Shh,” Anna whispered. “It’s all done.”
Sterling came back for the data and went to process it, while Atlas stayed by Anna’s side.
