My daughter was fourteen hours old when she stopped breathing, her lips a dusky blue. The nurse cradled her and sprinted to the resuscitation room as my postpartum body limped after. I watched the swarm of adults working, their hands giant in comparison to her tiny body, lying motionless in the incubator. “I can’t lose her” I whispered to my friend. The weight of knowing this precious being could be taken from me before I got the chance to know her—I couldn’t breathe. Minutes passed until the pink colour dispersed throughout her body and her cry pierced the silence.
Rachel Fleming is an aspiring writer. She is interested in flash memoir, middle grade fiction, and historical fiction.