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| Mason Mathie; March 9th, 2012 | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 10 2012, 01:10 AM (315 Views) | |
| Riley Mathie | Mar 10 2012, 01:10 AM Post #1 |
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"I need..." Apparently getting a full sentence out wasn't a possibility at that moment. Riley Mathie stood in the lobby of Mungo's, gripping the counter of the reception desk for dear life as she folded over her stomach. A pitched whine escaped her, breathing coming short and unsteady as she went through what seemed like the millionth contraction she'd had since she started having them hours and hours ago. It was two in the morning, and the lobby was pretty empty. There was maybe two people sitting in the chairs waiting for loved ones or needing a break from the hospital rooms, but Riley paid them no mind. As soon as she thought she could manage it, Riley straightened back up. "I need a healer. I'm having my baby...I need to push... I-oh god." Riley's voice did not come out as commanding and prepared and it usually did; instead it was nearly pleading as it completed with a sob, the tenderness of her stomach wearing on her last ounce of patience. It was not a comforable feeling to want to crawl out of your own skin. Truthfully, Riley should have been at Mungo's hours ago. She should have been able to lay down, be hooked up to monitors and IVs with drugs that would make the pain go away, and have people come bring her ice chips or something that didn't actually help but did bring her mind off things. Instead she'd gone home from her dance studio and worked. She tried to take a nap, and then when contractions kept waking her up, took a bath. The heat did sooth her stomach between the contractions. Eventually she attempted to eat something, but after a while she ended up simply sitting on her couch with her arms wrapped around her un-glamoured stomach and waited, eyes glazed, for each wave of pain. She'd been waiting for the tell tale sign of her water breaking for her to actually go into Mungo's though, and so hours and hours passed. Just a mere half an hour ago Riley realized that the pressure on her hips had significally increased to the point where sitting was an almost impossible feat and that in every contraction came a gripping need to expell the baby from her body. She felt the need to push, and it was that feeling that made her finally pack up and get to Mungo's. By the time she got there though, the need to push was so horrible she felt like she might just have Mason right there in the lobby. Now she was just trying to fill out paperwork as quickly as possible and as steadily as her hand would allow, tears already sliding down her flushed face in frustration. There were other things she was supposed to be thinking about to - like notifying her adoptive parents - but all she wanted to do was get into a bed with a professional and get him out of her. She needed to get him out of her body, and instead she was sitting there wondering why they were asking her asinine questions. It took her a fair amount of time to get the paperwork done before she was being told to sit - sitting, again - in a wheelchair to be rushed to the maternity floor and fitted for birth. The only thing that was saving them from worrying about the baby being in distress was that her water hadn't broken yet, but it would be very soon. Very soon, the acolyte told her. Changing was a whirlwind in which Riley couldn't remember taking off her clothes or putting on the gown whatsoever; the agony that was labour was clouding her mind and filling her with one single objective; to push. She needed to push. One second she was laying down on the bed and the next there were too many people in the little room, crowding her, telling her what to do. Put her legs up in the stirrups, hold onto the bars. Count and breathe. Ten, then take a breath. Another ten, then take another breath. A release of a tiny bit of pressure and more people leaving and re-entering the room. The hospital lawyer coming in to double check with the healer taht she was in labour and the baby was still healthy. Finally, finally being able to push. The relief she felt strengthened her power to do just that despite how pushing made the pressure worse. The room felt like an inferno and sweat mixed in with her tears as she pushed and screamed, her hands bruising on the metal of the railings. People were still there telling her what to do, how to sit, when to push. She just moved as they molded her and pushed. Breathing wasn't as easy as it sounded; breathing came secondary to the room spinning, the blood she could see blurily on the hands of the people down b her vagina. She was pushing too hard, they told her. She needed to take it easy or her body wouldn't open enough for her baby to come out without ripping her. She didn't care; she just wanted to be done. She just wanted to hold her son, and not have it feel like she was dying. She didn't care about ripping. But they told her that Mason wouldn't be able to come out if her body didn't gradually bring him forward and the harder she pushed, the tenser it got. For him, she tried to tone it down. Too soft, they then told her. He was crowning, they said. Crowning was such a stupid phrase. The baby's head was coming out, that was progress. That was much more gradifying than "the baby is crowning". Out of nowhere there were papers being thrown into her face, the hospital lawyer sweating and looking entirely too uncomfortable in front of her. He mixed in with the other voices to tell her she hadn't signed the contract for the adoption yet. She didn't blame him for feeling awkward. He was just a lawyer. "I did already sign it." Riley moaned out, hating the healer in that second for sticking his hands in that tender, tender area. Whether or not he was trying to guide her baby didn't matter. It just hurt. The lawyer grabbed her attention again by wrestling her hand off the bar so he could put a pen in it. Something about preliminary contracts being accepted by a legal job and lots of fancy words floated in and out of her consciousness...it was black. No, there, the lights were back onto shining the world in stark white. She wished her hair was in a ponytail or something. It surrounded and stuck to her face, her shoulders, and neck. It itched and choked her space. There were too many people in the room. The contract had to be signed now, she was told. Now, before she changed her mind. She managed to tell him she wouldn't change her mind. It wasn't for the reasons most young people gave up babies. Or maybe it was. She didn't presume to know anything. Oh dear lord, did the healer just say the shoulders were stuck? The shoulders were stuck and she had to be careful or she would rip and if the baby's head was out why wasn't he crying? Why did it hurt so bad if the 'hard part' was almost over? Was there a hard part to labour? It all hurt. Riley signed the contract, partially just to get one more person to leave the room. Her hand left a damp imprint on the papers; her signature was illegable and did not follow the line. Even still, the man loosened his tie and all but fled from the room. How long had it been? An hour? Two? Was the baby still really stuck? What was that...what was that metal thing... The scream echoed in the room in high decibels and Riley had the wish that she could cover her ears. It was only when her vision started blacking out again that she realized it was her that had made that scream, that noise, and stopped. She gasped for breath as there was a weird, wet sound and all of a sudden her entire body seemed to collapse and sink into the bed at the same time as a different scream filled the room; this one wobbly and throaty. Now she was crying for a whole different reason. They had to help her remove her hands from the metal bars and massage them back into moving from the bruised cramp she had given herself, helping her finish delivering and cleaning her up. They helped her sit up, gave her water, and she barely noticed. She was too fixtated on seeing what she had created...what she had been carrying for the past nine months. One by one, the too-many-people filed out of the room as they weren't necessary and finally all that was left was her and the acolyte that had originally wheeled her into the room. Riley no longer noticed her exhaustion, or the pain that she had from either labour or her accidental self-injuring tendencies. "Do you want to take a picture of him?" The acolyte was looking at her strangely, something akin to sympathy, as she held up a disposable camera. That Riley ignored; she didn't think sympathy was necessary. Yes, there was a regulatory three months of time where Riley could not see her son, but that made sense to her. He had to get used to his adoptive parents and having her constantly around would be confusing as his mind first began to make connections. So Riley wiped her cheeks and smiled, "I would absolutely love to." It confused her for a moment because the acolyte turned and seemed to take a multitude of pictures of the child Riley had not yet gotten to hold, and then simply handed the camera to her. That...wasn't exactly what Riley had in mind, but that was alright. But then the acolyte started to wheel Mason out of the room. "Is something wrong?" Riley immediately asked, straightening as if she would get out of bed. "Is he okay?" "Yes he's...fine. I...I'm sorry. He needs to go to his parents now. They're waiting to take him home." Was that how it worked? She didn't even get to hold her son once before he was shipped off? "Not yet." She asked, "Please, just give me a little time to see him." The acolyte was definitely emitting some kind of emotion, perhaps guilt, but Riley couldn't care to take the time to figure out what it was. Instead she was focused on the fact that right that second, this woman was planning on leaving with Mason before Riley had a chance to meet him. Before she had a chance to see what the pain she'd just gone through was worth. "The...adoption policy you've signed won't allow you to see him. I am so sorry, Miss Mathie. I'm required by the contract to bring him to the parents you've selected for him." "It's an open adoption." Riley argued, "There was no discussion saying I couldn't meet him before he was whisked off." "That's the problem, Miss Mathie. I'm sorry, but you signed for a closed adoption. Now if you'll excuse me?" ... A closed adoption? No, she did not. She most definitely did not. She had the people she chose come into an ultrasound so she could make them fall in love with her son while she strong-armed them into giving her an open adoption. The papers she sat in numerous meetings for figuring out the wordings of the contract had never once mentioned a closed adoption. But those papers she'd just signed... She knew she had already signed the contract! Infuriated, Riley pushed her way off the bed and wrapped the gown more securely around her as she purposefully took off. It was with a grimace settling on her face at the uncomfortable feeling of walking, but even her shaky legs didn't stop until she got to the room where parents picked up their newborns. "How dare you." The words she spat out were again not what she intended; she'd meant to have them full of anger and force, intent on some way to make this be fixed, but seeing the stricken faces of the hospital staff contrasting with the satisfied faces of the two people she decided would be suitable - suitable, ha! - to raise her son had her throat closing in shock and hurt. As if she was going to attack the family, staff members move to stand in front of her, to tell her to calm down. To raise their hands as a spacial barrier. How could this have happened? How was it that she could have chosen a family who would singlehandedly make it so that she would be completely erased from the picture? Who had just gone through hours of agony and who had carried him and kept him safe and... "He's my son." Just seeing that woman holding her blonde, wrinkly baby brought hatred into Riley's heart rather than the relief it was supposed to bring. She was supposed to feel that her son was safe and being raised well, not wondering what else they had hidden from her. Not wondering if they would treat him as they had just treated her. "That second contract was not signed with my understanding and was while I was not in my right mind. It would never hold up in court!" "Can you afford to go to court?" That smile...that goddamn smile that she had seen on men's faces so many times. Slick, sly, and full with the knowledge that they had the power over her. That she was backed into a circle and they could do nothing. "Yes." Even though her bank account was so depleted right now she wasn't sure if she could afford the room she'd just occupied, her simple, hissed word was full of conviction. Her throbbing hands pulled white into fists as she tried to figure out who to look at. She wanted to stare down the adoptive parents, glare at them until they either believed that she would come after them or that they changed their minds...that they gave her Mason back. At the same time, terror that she was losing her son had her want to keep glancing at him to take in as many details as she could. And then on a third hand, she wanted the lawyer to back her up. To tell her that this contract was fake, false. That this was all just a joke. That they weren't actually taking her baby away from her by force. That she wasn't going to not be able to hold him for the first time, or that she would actually be able to visit him in three months. Three months! That was the contract. Not forever. Never forever. She'd never make anyone feel like she didn't want them. She knew that kind of parenting. She refused. Refused! But the lawyer mopped his brow and told her in a gentle voice that she had once thought was just his mild-mannered way that she hadn't been on drugs and therefore it would hold up in court. She'd signed it. She'd known she was signing it. Too late Riley realized who it was she was supposed to be looking at. Too late her ears registered the pop, and too late she pushed past the staff to reach where her son had just disappeared. Literally. He had just disappeared. Riley breathed out in a gush, just staring at the spot where they had all just stood. As if they were going to come back. As if they hadn't just left. As if she hadn't just lost him. As if...as if... "The address!" Hysteria rose Riley's usual lounge-singer voice into high, sharp octaves. "What is their address?" She rushed forward to grab the lawyer, ignoring the hands on her trying to pull her off. She shook him, shook his collar, pushed him against the wall. "What. Is. Their. ADDRESS?!" He looked down at her, his eyes flickering somewhere behind her before he finally looked into her face and sighed with some difficulty. "Closed adoptions are untouchable files for the biological mother." A sharp pinch hit Riley's neck as her body stopped knowing how to work. With an exhaled moan she sunk to the floor; suspended from hitting it by the personnel who had sedated her. The room ceased to exist; around and around her mind wrapped around fact. Fact: she just gave birth to a healthy baby boy by the name of Mason Demetrius Mathie. Fact: She'd been tricked into signing a contract for a closed adoption. Fact. His adoptive parents just left. Her eyes closed. They disappeared. He was gone. They'd stolen Mason, and she had no means to find him. No help on the side of the law, no money to hire the other end. Nothing. He was gone. He was gone, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her baby was gone. He would never know who she was; that, Riley was sure of. Gone. Docile now, she allowed help putting her clothes back in. Now she didn't even wince at the soreness. Physical pain was nothing on the hole they'd just helped gorge into her chest. She allowed them to lead her to the door. She left, clutching the camera for dear life. Gone. |
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