"It's a girl!"
Kyung-ha’s eyes were foggy as they stared ahead, the scrunching of her face Wird angezeigt the agonizing pain of her body that had just gone through labor. She had been pushing for hours, cold sweat dripping down her forehead and neck as she shrieked and cried out against the unbearable affliction coursing through her back and abdomen. The warrior had been stabbed, bitten, and shot before––but no pain compared to failing to push out a baby and having to undergo an emergency C-section, on oben, nach oben of just catching her husband cheating with another woman. She grinded her teeth, her nails digging into the metal rails of her bed. No one was there to hold her hand during birth. There was no encouragement oder words of comfort to keep her at ease. The poor woman was all alone.
“Would Du like to hold her?” The nurse smiled after drying off the remaining blood from the baby, wrapping her in a rosa blanket. “Have Du got a name for her yet?”
There was no response from the new mother. She was still panting, her eyes trying to adjust to the lighting to view her daughter. Would she like to hold her? Yes and no. Did she have a name? No. In fact, tonight of her anniversary she was supposed to decide a name with George until it all went sideways. The nurse noticed Kyung-ha’s dizziness and ordered someone to put in another epidural. Kyung-ha cringed upon being injected again, feeling as if she was some sort of experiment oder weak subject at the vulnerability she currently expressed. She could only imagine her respect Lost from everyone she knew. What would her co-workers think if they saw her now? Disappointment was expected. Laughter even. And worst of all, pity.
Her brown eyes closed in on the rosa blanket that wrapped her creation, wondering why the baby wasn’t crying. “....she’s s-so… small…” Kyung-ha heaved out, thinking she had delivered what felt like a 30 pound tire.
“She is indeed small, only 5 pounds! Premature Babys hardly ever make it. She is what we would call a miracle baby.” The nurse explained, “She’s not a crybaby either—I assume you’ve got a tough strong girl stored in your future.” She gently placed the newborn into Kyung-ha’s trembling arms. But immediately upon setting her down in new arms, the child began to cry.
Kyung-ha cringed, biting her tongue as the sharp pitch of her daughter’s cries pierced her eardrums. It was so… loud. She was unsure of what to do, looking around for help with confused and desperate eyes. What had she done? Did she hurt the baby? Were her hands too cold?
“Don’t worry Ms. Park, it’s completely normal—”
“TAKE HER AWAY NOW!” Kyung-ha suddenly shrieked, her body convulsing in the aftermath of the labor. The nurse quickly scooped her out of her hands and instead laid her in the krippe adjacent to Kyung-ha’s hospital bed. “Nnnnngghhh–uuuuggghhhh—” The mother groaned in pain. She assumed the baby could tell she was in distress and thus felt like she was as well. Why wasn’t the medication working?
“I am sorry but Du are at the maximum dosage of all our pain medications, Ms. Park. Du will have to wait it out.”
Kyung-ha clawed the metal railings again, hissing to herself as her human body recovered from unknowingly pushing out what would come to be a magical being. Yet, the baby still cried at the oben, nach oben of its lungs, which in turn only stressed out the mother more. “W-Why she cry?! Why she crying?!” She gritted her teeth, the nurse’s vague response not helping. She felt nauseous. Sick. Ashamed. She still needed to fill out reports and attend cases for her job.
“Ms. Park, is there anyone I can call to come be with you? Perhaps any siblings oder relatives? Your husband?”
“My parents have passed. My siblings are gone. And my husband is dead.” To me. She added in her head, watching the nurses and bystanders dismiss themselves to give her the alone time she wanted.
Thirty Minuten had passed, and the pain was still present. She heard the baby begin to cry again, clutching her hands into trembling fists trying to filter out the noise. This time Kyung-ha decided she would check on the child herself. She groaned in pain as she stood up, one hand on her belly and the other sliding the IV pole with her. She stubbornly took off all the wires she was hooked up to while at it, dragging her pale feet on the cold tiles. Kyung-ha peeked into the krippe slowly, not wanting to startle the baby.
She watched its little legs and arms dangle in the air, shuffling and whining to herself for reasons unknown to Kyung-ha. “Shhh.” She silenced her.
The baby paused momentarily, its blind eyes searching for the familiar voice that would tell her stories and sometimes even sing to her when she was still in her belly.
“Oi, I just gave birth and Du the one crying, eh???” Kyung-ha raised a brow of hers, peering some Mehr into her daughter’s crib. Her mother’s high-pitched ehh sound made her tilt her tiny head. Her small arms wiggled helplessly in the air, finding its fingers entangled in her mother’s long strands of hair that hung loosely over the crib. Much to Kyung-ha’s surprise, the newborn grinned and released a hiccup of a laugh.
“Huh?” However, the sight of her daughter’s toothless smile made her forget about the pain for only the quickest of seconds. She was entranced Von her cuteness and fragility. So small she was in a world so big. How could someone known to be cold, ruthless, and incapable of Liebe produce an epitome of the complete opposite? She knew her daughter would be gentle, innocent, and kind––everything the world greedily stahl, stola from her in her own troubled childhood.
Kyung-ha smiled, but the realization that the world also had people dedicated to tearing and breaking Babys like the one before her made her frown. She carefully extended her trembling arms to pick up her newborn, cradling her closely and motherly. Behind closed doors she finally stroked her small rosey cheeks, curling the little hair the child had with her index finger. “What Du crying about, eh?” she rocked her gently, burying her pain she felt for the sake of her daughter. Was she crying because her dad wasn’t here? “You’ve got me.” She swallowed hard, feeling the tears form in her eyes. “And you’ll always have me, Yoon.”
