They held my hand as I counted,
A gentle care for my past trauma.
And as the numbness swept down,
Up rushed a rising nausea.

They were quick to counter it,
And reassure me all was fine.
The midwife talking me through it all,
And telling me when it was time.

Seven layers deep we went before,
Curtains lowered, hands squeezed tight.
A gutural sob escaped my lips,
As my perfect baby came into sight.

The tension I’d been holding.
For days, weeks, months disappeared.
My baby safe, alive and well,
Anxiety-fogged mind cleared.

The newborn squall rang loud and clear,
Sweet music to my ears.
A sound I’d missed in my first birth,
A silence echoed in those years.

Umbilical cord left attached
to pulse, until it stilled.
Before skin to skin we laid together,
My world suddenly more than filled.

Those first cherished moments together,
Made me so acutely aware.
Of what I’d lost the first time round,
Empty arms, alone, despair.

My tears mixed joy, pain, loss and healing,
To fall quietly on new crown.
With this birth came a new beginning,
A heaviness put down.

And now months on from that day,
Just a scar remains.
A mark of my strength and courage -
Power that had always been mine to claim.

My baby no longer sits small in my arms.
But fills them joyously.
A star-dusted, energy-filled ball of light,
Who healed a part of me.

 
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The little bugs

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Mark of Birth