When I Met Your Birth Mother

Image created onCanva
The coordinator from the lawyer’s office gave my mom and me a long lecture about what kind of
clothes to wear, how much makeup and jewelry to wear.
We questioned whether we looked too high class, low class, dressed up, dressed down. Little did we know that the coordinator charged by the hour, as much as the attorney.
Walking into the hospital, I didn’t know what to expect.
Then, I saw her.
When my mom and I got to the hospital, your birth mother was already in the bed ready for the c-section. She looked ready for a day of work or brunch out with the girls, she had long, manicured nails, long, pressed hair, and lash extensions. We had a slightly tearful introduction before Mom and I headed to the waiting room.
I paced as my mind went back and forth from confident to full of doubt. It was only an hour but felt simultaneously like five minutes and like a year.
When they called me into the nursery, your eyes were already open, looking around, as if you were waiting for me. As my eyes met yours, not only did you matter more to me than anything I had ever known or imagined, but suddenly, I mattered almost as much as you.
Looking for more to read? Check these out from the MockingOwl contributors and authors.

CLS Sandoval
CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes. She’s a flash fiction and poetry editor for Dark Onus Lit. She has presented over 50 times at communication conferences, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, three chapbooks, as well as flash and poetry pieces in several literary journals, recently including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Magical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own. She is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in Alhambra, CA.