![]() Melanie feels an explosive, protective, overwhelming love. The baby cries, she opens her eyes and turns her head toward sound, she roots against Melanie until she latches onto a nipple. ![]() I’m her mother.Melanie becomes mesmerized by the impossible smallness of Amber’s every feature-her small mouth, her tiny ears, her fingers and toes, her beating heart the size of an egg. Healthy.When the nurses wheel Melanie out of recovery (after eighteen hours in labor, an epidural, a shot of Pitocin, and a distressed heartbeat, the doctors performed a C-section), Melanie is able to hold her daughter and nurse her for the first time, and she feels like the world is brand-new she feels like she is seeing everything for the first time.When she conveys this feeling to Peter, he says, “That’s the morphine talking.”I have a baby, Melanie thinks. ![]() ![]() “Melanie Patchen delivers a baby girl, Amber Victoria, weighing eight pounds even and measuring twenty inches long. ![]()
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