Member-only story
When I fell in love with my mother.
A true life story!
It was an eerie early morning — around 1 a.m, and the night was thick with silence. You could hear the occasional barking of a stray dog outside the hospital. That’s how I remember being in labour.
It was my first time! My body, swollen with expectation, clenched in chilling waves of pain I had never known existed. Labour pains are not symbolic…they are primal. Each contraction felt like a stab from the inside. The pain announced itself gently, then it roared, pressing into my spine, wrapping itself around my lower belly. I cursed, yelled, and screamed.
I remember gripping the cold metal rail of the hospital bed, my eyes wild with disbelief. And in that moment, I turned to my mother. She was sitting beside me, laughing quietly, her shoulders shaking with amusement. Her face was lit with that mischievous smile only a mother can wear — the kind that says, “Oh, now you understand.”
I turned to her, clutched her hand and asked, “You didn’t tell me this is how labour feels… and you did this seven times?”
My voice was barely a whisper between the contractions.
My mother smiled widely — the smile of a woman who had walked this same path, now watching her daughter take it too.
