Page 5 of The Other Mother
"I know she's mine," I say quickly. "I just mean ... the connection. The feeling."
Jessica nods sympathetically. "Bonding difficulties are more common than people think. How long did you labor?"
"Forty hours. Then an emergency c-section."
"That's traumatic. Your body and mind are still processing that experience."
The woman in the Cal State sweatshirt speaks up. "Ihad a c-section too. It felt like they just cut her out of me and handed me a stranger. Like, wait, that's supposed to be my baby?"
Yes. Exactly like that. I want to reach across the circle and hug her.
Another woman starts talking about panic attacks, how she can't sleep because she's convinced something terrible will happen to her son. The group murmurs sympathetically, offering gentle advice about breathing exercises and therapy.
But the pale woman across from me mutters something under her breath. Something that sounds like, "That's not panic. That's knowing something isn't right."
Everyone pretends not to hear her. But I catch it. Our eyes meet across the circle and she gives me the slightest nod, like we share a secret.
"It gets better," Audrey adds. "One day you'll look at her and just know. Like, oh, there you are. I've been waiting for you."
I nod because it's what they expect, but I wonder if that moment will ever come. If one morning I'll wake up and Eva will feel like mine instead of like a beautiful, demanding stranger who happened to emerge from my body.
Jessica checks her watch. "We have time for one more share. Anyone have something they'd like to discuss?"
The redhead raises her hand. "This might sound crazy, but does anyone else ever look at their baby andthink they look different? Like, not just day to day changes, but really different?"
My stomach clenches. "What do you mean?"
"Like, my son has blue eyes now, but I swear they were brown in the hospital. And his hair seems darker. Everyone says I'm imagining it, but I know what I saw."
"Babies change so much in the first few months," Jessica says gently. "Eye color, hair color, even facial features can shift as they develop."
But I'm not listening to Jessica anymore. I'm thinking about Eva's eyes getting darker instead of lighter. About the way her weight feels different in my arms. About the bumblebee onesie.
"My daughter was wearing different clothes when my husband brought her to me yesterday," I say before I can stop myself. "I put her down in one outfit and she was wearing something else when I found her."
The room goes quiet again, but this time it feels different. Charged.
"Different how?" the redhead asks.
"Pink sleeper to a yellow onesie. With bumblebees." The words tumble out. "My husband said I must have changed her and forgotten, but I didn't. I know I didn't."
Jessica shifts in her chair. "Memory issues are very common postpartum. Your brain is flooded with hormones, you're sleep-deprived?—"
"I'm not crazy," I say, more sharply than I intended.
"Of course you're not crazy," Audrey says quickly. "We've all had moments like that."
But have they? Or are they just being polite? I look around the circle at these tired women with their tired smiles and wonder if any of them have ever had the thought I can't shake. The thought that follows me from room to room, lurking at the edges of my consciousness like a shadow.
What if Eva isn't mine?
The thought is insane. I know it's insane. I was there when they cut her out of me, even if I wasn’t awake. She was covered in my blood. I felt her on my chest. I remember a nurse scanning our bands and saying “match,” but memory is slippery again, and the numbers in front of me don’t agree.
But knowing something and feeling it are different things.
"Time's almost up," Jessica announces. "Before we close, I want to remind everyone that questioning your connection to your baby doesn't make you a bad mother. It makes you human. These feelings will pass."
Will they? Or will I spend the next eighteen years looking at Eva and wondering if she's really mine? Will I search her face for traces of myself and Adam, or will I keep seeing a stranger's features in expressions that should be familiar?
