Marie Rose

Bowls slamming against the kitchen table with cereal filling them after, the toaster popping up cooked slices of bread, kids yelling they can’t find anything, “honey where are my keys?” is the start of every day for Charlotte.  She is a wife, mother of four children with the oldest being seven years old and she’s six months pregnant with baby number five.  Anyway, after her husband leave for work, she finishes getting her three oldest, who are boys, ready for school.  A little while later, she secure the boys and the youngest, who is a three year old girl, in the car and drop them off at school.  She return home and put baby girl to bed.  When the house is finally quiet, she clean up the morning’s mess then sleeps until the little one is awake.  This is her daily routine and she wouldn’t have it any other way.  

For the next two and a half months, her days went on without a hitch, then one night, she woke up in a cold sweat.  She jumped out of bed and checked on the kids but they were asleep.  She went to the kitchen to have a glass of water and back to bed afterward.  The next day, she told her husband about the nightmare in which she was in a bed inside of a darkroom.  Her arms and legs were tied down and that restricted her movements.  She heard her children screaming but she couldn’t get up to see what was wrong.  She fought as hard as she could, but all that did was drain her energy.  A few minutes later, squeaky hinges filled her ears as a bright light, from the hallway, illuminated a corner of the room.  A hand touched her stomach with the attempt of trying to rip the baby out of her stomach.  Her husband assured her that she will be fine and to not eat any junk food before bed.  She listened and he was right but she didn’t tell him that.  A week into her third trimester, Charlotte began to experience labor pains.  Since her husband was out of town on business, she and the kids stayed with her mom incase of an emergency.  

On the 15th of June, things took a turn.  Charlotte took a cab to the hospital because stomach pains were getting the best of her and she didn’t trust it to drive herself.  She was immediately put in a room.  A nurse came in and asked her a thousand questions then she left the room.  Charlotte fell asleep and a nightmare, she previously had, picked up where it left off.  Her baby was literally ripped from her stomach by someone, but she couldn’t see their face.  The baby was silent.  This person held the infant toward the ceiling and a bright light engrossed it.  Charlotte jumped in fear and woke up to the doctor putting the stethoscope on her stomach.  He giggled but apologized and got to the business at hand.  She was hooked up to a machine to monitor the baby’s heartbeat, but there wasn’t one.  Charlotte began to panic and so did the doctor.  He left the room for a few seconds and came back with three nurses.  Two of the nurses held each of her hands and the third one assisted the doctor because he had to manually break her water.  The labor pains began to intensify, but there was still no heartbeat.  The doctor and nurses prepared themselves to deliver a stillborn baby.  At 6:35am, another baby girl was born.  Instead of tears of joy, tears of sadness were being shed.  For several minutes, the doctor tried to revive the baby but he was unsuccessful.  At 6:42am, baby girl was pronounced dead. 

Charlotte was devastated.  The doctor put the baby in a hospital bed, covered her up, and pushed her to the other side of the room.  Charlotte was irate because she wanted the baby next to her.  She reached over the left side of the bed and pulled the cover back so she could see her precious angel.  She cried and prayed and prayed and cried.  She called her mom and told her the devastating news.  They cried on the phone together.  Charlotte told her mom that she felt guilty and that’s what hurt the most. Her mom asked her to elaborate.  Charlotte began to tell her mom how her husband had been physically abusive to her and the kids, up until the day he went out of town.  There was a time when the boys were whipped with extension cords because they were being too loud and when she tried to stop him, he would beat her like she was a man.  He would hit them with belts after a bath if he felt as if they were not doing well enough in school.  One of the scariest times was when he threatened to pour scalding hot water on all the kids if she didn’t give him money to buy alcohol.  Charlotte went on and on about the abuse.

“Why do you feel guilty?” her mother asked.

“Because the day he was leaving to go to the airport, he slapped me across the face and told me to behave while he was gone.  I was going to leave the baby at the hospital, take the kids and go as far away as I can without looking back.”

The doctor came back into the room and Charlotte got off the phone.  She sang and cried over the baby.  She covered the baby and asked the doctor to move her because it is becoming too painful.  The doctor obliged and moved her to the other side of the room.  Tears rolled down her face as she overheard him on the phone making pickup arrangements with the morgue.  It’s almost noon and the morgue hasn't came to pick up the baby.  Everytime Charlotte looked toward the baby, tears would roll down her face.  

A faint cough was heard.  Charlotte and the doctor looked at each other.  A second later, another faint cough was heard.  The both of them looked at each other, then shockingly looked toward the baby.  All of a sudden, a loud cry filled the maternity floor.  The doctor practically ran to the baby and Charlotte was close behind.  He pulled the cover back and instead of a pale blue quiet infant, they saw a pink, and loud, baby that’s alive.  Charlotte picked the baby up and balled.  She prayed and promised to love and care for the baby regardless of how hard things may seem.  Instead of a death certificate, there is now a birth certificate and baby girl name was Marie Rose.