IWD - Challenge 132 Women of OZ - Maritza Alvarez - Reluctant
Season 1
Maritza POV - 2nd person
Heavy angst/ tw- loss of child
You weren't ready for motherhood. You didn't want a child and you both were too fucked up to support one. You prayed for it to be taken away from the moment you peed on the stick and saw that plus sign. You did stupid things, dangerous things, way too many drugs and still it was there, like an ever-present itch that you couldn't scratch and wouldn't go away.
The only time a pregnancy could have worked in your favor was at your sentencing and it didn't have any effect on the judge. You were stuck with this, doomed to have a baby in prison. They wouldn't allow you to abort it, too late for that, they said. Didn't matter that as soon as you gave birth, the baby would be taken as a ward of the State. (And it wasn't as if the system was exactly ready to welcome another child into the world either.)
When it finally happened, the moments seemed to be fragmented in your mind. The contractions started and your water broke. Miguel appeared at your side in the hospital at some point, but you were so out of it with the pain that you couldn't quite figure out why he was there. The doctor told you to push. You did as he instructed and before you could catch your breath, the baby was out of you.
All the commotion around you seemed to die down and you relaxed. You wanted to sleep, but, in the next moment, the nurse was laying a baby wrapped in a blanket against your chest. You looked at the baby, this creature that had been inside you for the past nine months, this amazing little survivor despite everything you'd done, and you fell in love. And almost as soon as she had left him with you, the nurse was taking him away, just to run some more tests, she said. You wanted to cling to him tighter, fearful that this moment was going to be the last.
It wasn't the last time you held him. That was after. After the prayers you'd prayed eight and a half months ago were finally answered. You lifted him out of the incubator and held him one last time, this baby boy that couldn't make it out here after all you'd done to him.
Later that night and for many nights after, you tell yourself you weren't ready for motherhood. It's the truth and it's the sole comfort you have as you cry yourself to sleep at night.
Maritza POV - 2nd person
Heavy angst/ tw- loss of child
You weren't ready for motherhood. You didn't want a child and you both were too fucked up to support one. You prayed for it to be taken away from the moment you peed on the stick and saw that plus sign. You did stupid things, dangerous things, way too many drugs and still it was there, like an ever-present itch that you couldn't scratch and wouldn't go away.
The only time a pregnancy could have worked in your favor was at your sentencing and it didn't have any effect on the judge. You were stuck with this, doomed to have a baby in prison. They wouldn't allow you to abort it, too late for that, they said. Didn't matter that as soon as you gave birth, the baby would be taken as a ward of the State. (And it wasn't as if the system was exactly ready to welcome another child into the world either.)
When it finally happened, the moments seemed to be fragmented in your mind. The contractions started and your water broke. Miguel appeared at your side in the hospital at some point, but you were so out of it with the pain that you couldn't quite figure out why he was there. The doctor told you to push. You did as he instructed and before you could catch your breath, the baby was out of you.
All the commotion around you seemed to die down and you relaxed. You wanted to sleep, but, in the next moment, the nurse was laying a baby wrapped in a blanket against your chest. You looked at the baby, this creature that had been inside you for the past nine months, this amazing little survivor despite everything you'd done, and you fell in love. And almost as soon as she had left him with you, the nurse was taking him away, just to run some more tests, she said. You wanted to cling to him tighter, fearful that this moment was going to be the last.
It wasn't the last time you held him. That was after. After the prayers you'd prayed eight and a half months ago were finally answered. You lifted him out of the incubator and held him one last time, this baby boy that couldn't make it out here after all you'd done to him.
Later that night and for many nights after, you tell yourself you weren't ready for motherhood. It's the truth and it's the sole comfort you have as you cry yourself to sleep at night.