I pushed through just two contractions to birth my first baby. Her daddy had already told the nurses he would not be cutting the umbilical cord. He wanted to stay conscious, for my sake.
They placed her in my arms, a tiny mermaid finally emerged from the watery dark.
Then they gave me a pair of scissors.
“Go ahead, Mom, snip right here.”
I didn’t know I would be allowed to do it. But I had just birthed a baby. There was nothing I couldn’t do. Eagerly, I opened the scissors, thinking what a good story this would make. And then I hesitated.
For nine months, we had been one. For nine months, this connection kept her alive. Now, to survive, she needed to be severed from me.
My mermaid had to swim on her own.
The scissors gaped at the cord as I drew a breath. Its blue and red vessels intertwined like the fibers of a rope made of wax and rubber. I doubted the scissors could do the job—separate two human beings. But they did.
With a single snip, one became two.
