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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 28 "Don't stop pushing." Then he was there, sliding out of my flesh, crying, wet. I stared at him. My son. His eyes were puffy and closed. His skin was a little blue and his head was elongated and crooked. The doctor cut the umbilical cord, and if he was ever truly a part of me, my son was now wholly himself. He lay across my stomach making little swimming, crawling movements, his fingers curling delicately over his palms. I felt incredible relief. A euphoria I'd never felt lifted me higher than I'd ever been. I soared. "Mark, he's magnificent! He looks just like you!" "He looks like Woody Woodpecker," said Mark. They all do. I can hear them crying through the nursery window. "Which one is yours?" A young woman in a bright silk kimono and furry slippers asks me, her reflection smiling out of the glass. "I'm sorry. Did you speak to me?" "I said, which one is yours?" "None of them are mine. . .1 have four boys at home," I add lamely, as if that justifies my being up here. "I belong |