An eighth cry in the room
Shortly after, I felt the contractions again.
I was breathing as the doctors’ voices grew louder. I breathed along with the increasingly rapid beeping of the monitors. Everything around me seemed to be speeding up, while I was simply trying to follow the instructor’s directions.
Then came another cry.
It was fainter than the previous ones.
But this time, as that sound filled the room, no one immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone seemed frozen.
He is alive.
Eight cries and eight tiny beating hearts.
I don’t remember what happened immediately afterward. What I remember most is the immense wave of emotion that suddenly overwhelmed me.
It was no longer just pain or fear.
I saw my children settled into their incubators. I watched the doctors move from one to the other, focused on each of them.
The doctor himself seemed still shaken
