When she came to, she was in a different room. Everything hurt, so she'd been out long enough for the anesthesia to wear off. Now, where was her baby?
"Oh honey" Her eyes widened as she saw Esme beside her.
"Baby. How is bean?" She asked frantically.
"The doctor's are hopeful. She's on a ventilator and receiving oxygen. Here let me show you a picture." Bella grabbed her phone and looked at her baby in an incubator.
"She's so tiny." Her finger traced over the image. Beneath all the wires, was her baby, she was beautiful.
"1 LB 6 OZ." Her jaw dropped. "She's considered a micro preemie." Esme reached over and showed her another picture. Edward was in this one. You could see she was barely longer than his hand resting on the incubator.
"Is he with her?" She didn't want her to be alone.
"Only left when it was required. He sends his love."
"I'm glad he's with her." She only glanced at Esme briefly before looking down at the pictures again. There were a few that she scanned through. "I can't tell. Does she have any hair?" Esme slid a straw into her mouth making her drink as her voice broke.
"A sprinkling of light hair, not much." She tried to imagine. She couldn't wait till she could see with her own eyes. She stayed awake long enough to eat before Esme convinced her to sleep. It wasn't until the next morning that she finally got to see her baby. Edward pushed her chair over to the incubator.
"There's little Lara" The name had been chosen because it was from a Brazilian fairytale about a water nymph. Bella's eyes followed every little movement. She knew some of the tubes were for her breathing and nutrients, but she wasn't sure about the others. A monitor behind Lara looked to be a heart monitor.
"She's perfect." And she was. She spent another 12 weeks in the NICU. In that time both parents had to go back to work. Then in January just a few weeks before Lara came home Edward started back to school. Esme flew back for Lara's homecoming and stayed for the first month helping. All grandparents had met Lara by then, but Renee had been once and had not been very pleasant. With a hardened heart Bella decided to cut Renee off.
Since being found Renee had done nothing, but knocking her down. Instead of her near death bringing them closer, they'd been pulled farther apart. Bella often wondered if her mother really felt like she had died when she buried that empty casket. As a mother herself now, she just couldn't accept her mother's thoughtless words and actions.
Esme stepped in, filling in the hole Renee had left. Sue Clearwater, her step mother, was there too. So much so that when it was time to choose a school for their masters they headed to the Pacific Northwest. A few years later a very happy six year old helped her father with his doctoral thesis, a study of the marine life in the tide pools of Washington's coasts.
Bella watched as Lara chased after her father. It still amazed her to look at her daughter. They'd nearly lost her many times in the first few weeks, but little Lara had fought.
"Come see, Daddy! Come see." Lara held up a shell as she ran towards Edward. He smiled proudly as he bent down to look at what she'd found. "Look, I found a mussel"
"Do you know that mussels are bivalve molluscs just like clam and oysters?…" Bella smiled, heart full with love, as daughter and father shared another touching moment. She'd go through the hardships a hundred times over if it brought her to this moment.
The end
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