Small Bump

'Cause you were just a small bump unborn for four months then torn from life
Maybe you were needed up there but we're still unaware as why.

--“Small Bump,” Ed Sheeran

 

A nurse helped me wrap up in plastic the IV catheter line that still dangled from my left arm. It’s been flushed several times already with cleansing saline. They had tried to tap a vein in my right forearm when I came into the hospital and mentioned that I’m left-handed. They went for my non-dominant hand but failed, so now I had swelling in my right forearm and a dull ache where the liquid wasn’t able to go in. 

After the nurse water-proofed my catheter line as much as possible, I stepped into the hospital shower, drew the plastic curtains, and cleansed myself, letting the warmth of the water envelope me. I scrubbed away the sticky lines left over on my skin from band-aids being ripped off. Then I dressed in front of the fogged-up mirror. As my visage cleared and looked back at me, I dropped my eyes to what was left of the small bump of my stomach. I laid my hands on where Thi used to be and started sobbing, insulted that I still had to wear this façade of pregnancy when I was actually so empty inside. How could my body betray me this way? That it could house a dead baby for weeks and not give me any signs of her passing. And yet I think of all I’ve put it through, how much it gave to me. It hung on to my baby long after my logical mind knew she was gone. It refused to go into labor until subjected to medically-induced contractions to let go that which was no longer growing.

I had asked the nurse to bring me something I could use to bind my breasts so milk wouldn’t come and flow. So open was my heart before to feed the babies besides my own, that I should lovingly pack and freeze my milk to donate to strangers and help those women nurture their little ones. Now I am shut down, and I couldn’t imagine having milk but no Thi. My liquid gold is hers and hers alone, and may it go with her where I cannot.