There she was. She opened her eyes, and I felt a powerful slap from the universe, a surge of love, pleasure and pain. She was out of me.

Omar cut the cord, and my baby girl was taken away to be weighed and cleaned.

Push out the placenta, Del, just a soft push now.

I felt it slip out, like a large sponge; it looked like a round lung, bubbly and bloody.

She’s losing blood, it won’t stop. There was panic in Lisa’s voice. She needs a shot. Now!

I felt light, weak. The room was folding in. I heard the baby cry.

Del, Del! Omar grabbed my arm.

It kept flowing out of me, this blood. I could smell the salt and metal of it, I felt nauseous, my head fell backwards, I slumped into the warm pool.

Del! Lisa, do something!

I sensed Omar’s fear. Then felt a sharp prick in my thigh. A cold patch spreading.

It’s stopped. The bleeding has stopped.

Thank god!

Lisa pulled me up gently towards a pillow. They turned me, pulled away the plastic sheet with my blood. Omar came towards me, with our daughter.

Her face, still spotted with traces of afterbirth, was scrunched into a frown; she uttered a sharp cry and her eyes flickered open. Wide and green, like her father’s.

I saw the universe and the greatest of loves.

I guided her to my breast and she opened her mouth to suckle. There she was.

Omar and I looked at each other, and we saw only love. And then, kisses of joy.

Four

Alba

“Alba. Alba.”

Omar breathed in her name again. Alba.

“My daughter,” he said.

She was fast asleep, her eyes shut, her tiny fists in tight little balls. They had just come home to their apartment, and in the sanctity of their home, he could finally breathe, and reflect on the single most profound moment of his life. His mother filled the fridge with food before she left and the sickly sweet smell of flowers overpowered the apartment. He sat on the couch and gazed at her, asleep in his arms.

She was so small. He cradled her gently in the crook of his left arm, not wanting to wake her, and he let his eyes rest on the miracle that was his daughter. Her head of dark brown hair, her fair skin still flushed from the birth. The midwife had exclaimed at how much hair she had when she crowned.

Alba, swaddled tightly in a light cream blanket, her rosebud lips, her eyelashes long and curled upward, her cheeks pink. How beautiful and perfect she was. Ten fingers and toes, all there.