Page 99 of Beyond the Cage
Mommy. My baby.Ourbaby. She’s okay.
“You scared me. I thought I was going to lose you,” he says, gently stroking my cheek.
He presses the call button and Dr. Chang walks in seconds later. My eyes are locked on my baby girl. I want to see her, to hold her so badly, but I don’t have the strength to move.
“Jasmine…can you hear me?”
I nod to Dr. Chang. She fusses over me for a while before I try to speak again.
“What…happened?”
“There were some complications. The umbilical cord got wrapped around the baby’s neck. You suffered an amniotic fluid embolism, had a seizure, and went into cardiac arrest. We had to perform an emergency C-section. You gave us quite a scare. You’ve been in a coma for a week.”
A week? I’ve missed a week of my baby’s life?
“Everything seems to be okay. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with yourhealthybaby girl.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“No problem, Mr. Jackson.”
With a proud smile, he lays the baby next to me, in the crook of my arm.
“Meet your mommy, little angel.”
I look down at her and my heart swells. “She’s…beautiful.”
“Just like her mom.”
“I think…she looks…more like you.”
I gasp as her little fingers curl around mine. The tag on her wrist reads ‘Baby Jackson’. That reminds me, we haven’t picked a name yet.
“Guess we need…to find…you a name.”
“I’ve been doing some research,” Cameron says.
“Oh, really? And what…have…you come up with?”
“Caden Amari Alayzia.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“Caden…that’s from me. It means ‘little fighter’…which fits, because she fought hard to make it into the world.”
“I like it.”
“Amari…that’s from you. It means ‘a miracle from God’.”
“Okay.”
“And Alayzia, that’s from both of us…it means ‘product of an undying love’.”
I look from him to her. My two loves. My heart.
“Caden Amari Alayzia Jackson. I love it,” I tell him.
“And I love you both…my gift and my miracle from God.”
