Heather Marie's First and Last Day with Jane

Jane's labour began at half past four in the morning at Patricia and Laurence Atwell's home in Mitcham, the contractions arriving with the particular intensity that comes when the body has been preparing for this moment without the mind's conscious permission. She'd woken Patrick's sister with a touch on the shoulder, whispering that it was time, that they needed to go to St. Margaret's Private Hospital in North Adelaide where Dr. Elizabeth Crawford had been managing Jane's care throughout the past month of her Adelaide residence.

The drive through pre-dawn Adelaide took twenty minutes, Patricia maintaining steady speed whilst Jane breathed through contractions that were already closer together than first labours typically allowed. This was Jane's fifth delivery, her body remembering what it needed to do even whilst her mind struggled with the reality that this birth would end differently than her previous four. Nicholas, Fiona, Solomon, and Pip had all been carried home from hospital, had become permanent parts of her life. Heather would be born, held briefly, then relinquished to Patricia and Laurence whilst Jane returned to Tasmania claiming the visit to Adelaide had been cut short by sudden illness.

St. Margaret's Private Hospital occupied a converted Victorian mansion on Pennington Terrace, its elegant exterior concealing the medical facility within. The hospital specialised in discreet maternity care for women whose circumstances required privacy—unmarried mothers, married women bearing children in complicated circumstances, women whose social positions demanded that certain aspects of childbirth remain confidential. Dr. Crawford had arranged everything during Jane's antenatal visits, ensuring that documentation would show Patricia Atwell as the mother, that Jane's role would be recorded only in sealed files that adoption law required but which wouldn't appear in publicly accessible records.

The admission process was efficient, the night staff accustomed to women arriving in advanced labour requiring immediate care. Jane was taken to a private delivery room on the second floor, its windows overlooking the garden that the October spring was beginning to colour with flowering plants. Patricia remained in the corridor, not permitted in the delivery room but close enough that her presence was felt, her patience during the coming hours representing extraordinary gift to her sister-in-law whose predicament she was helping resolve.

The labour progressed rapidly, Jane's experienced body requiring only three hours from the first serious contractions to full dilation. Dr. Crawford arrived at six o'clock, examining Jane with professional efficiency before confirming that delivery was imminent. The doctor was perhaps fifty, grey-haired and reassuringly competent, her manner combining clinical precision with genuine kindness that acknowledged the complicated circumstances surrounding this birth without requiring discussion of details that were painful for everyone involved.

The delivery itself was unremarkable from medical perspective—Jane pushed when instructed, breathed when directed, managed the pain with the stoicism that came from having done this before and knowing that the physical agony was temporary even when the emotional consequences would prove permanent. At seven forty-three AM, Heather Marie entered the world with the vigorous cry that indicated healthy lungs and immediate objection to her abrupt transition from womb's comfort to the world's demands.

Dr. Crawford placed the baby on Jane's chest immediately after delivery, the skin-to-skin contact that medical research was beginning to recognise as important for newborns' immediate adjustment and mothers' bonding. Jane looked down at her daughter, seeing features that were simultaneously familiar and entirely new. The baby had dark hair, thick for a newborn, slicked against her scalp from the birthing process. Her eyes, when they opened briefly, were dark—they'd likely lighten over coming months, but in this moment they were Ferdinand Morrison's eyes looking up at Jane with the unfocused gaze of someone hours old.

The nurse—Sister Margaret, middle-aged and efficient—cleaned Heather with gentle competence whilst Jane watched, the infant's protests at being handled creating sounds that Jane was hearing for the first and possibly only time. The baby's weight was announced as seven pounds, four ounces—healthy, neither unusually large nor concerning small. Her length was recorded as nineteen inches. The Apgar scores at one minute and five minutes after birth were both nine, indicating excellent health and no complications requiring immediate medical intervention.

After the cleaning and initial assessment, Sister Margaret wrapped Heather in a white cotton blanket and placed her in Jane's arms with the instruction that she could hold her daughter for a while before the baby needed to be taken to the nursery for further monitoring. The nurse left the room, closing the door with quiet click that emphasised the privacy of this moment, the three hours that Jane would have alone with the child she was relinquishing.

Jane sat propped against pillows in the hospital bed, Heather in her arms, experiencing the particular intensity that comes from knowing an experience is both happening and ending simultaneously. She studied her daughter's face with the desperate attention of someone trying to memorise features she'd never see again except in photographs filtered through decades. Heather's nose was small, button-shaped, resembling Jane's own baby photographs that her mother had shown her years ago. The mouth was perfectly formed, rosebud lips that pursed and relaxed in unconscious sucking motions even whilst sleeping.

The baby's hands were tiny, fingers no thicker than matchsticks but perfectly formed with miniature fingernails that were translucent and delicate. Jane touched each finger gently, feeling the warmth of new life, the softness of skin that had never been exposed to weather or work or any of the accumulated damage that living inevitably created. Heather's grip reflex engaged when Jane's finger touched her palm, the infant's hand closing with surprising strength around Jane's finger, holding on with the unconscious determination that newborns displayed.

Jane had experienced this moment four times before—holding Nicholas, Fiona, Solomon, and Pip shortly after their births, feeling the overwhelming love mixed with terror that accompanied becoming responsible for another human life. Yet this time was different because the love was compromised by the knowledge that this responsibility would last only hours before being transferred to Patricia and Laurence. Jane loved Heather—the feeling was immediate and overwhelming, contradicting any notion that maternal love required extended contact to develop. Yet she was also giving Heather away, choosing to provide her daughter with legitimate parents and stable life rather than bearing her as evidence of adultery that would destroy multiple families.

The three hours passed simultaneously too quickly and with agonising slowness. Jane held Heather through the baby's periods of sleep and wakefulness, through feeding attempts that the nurse supervised to ensure proper technique, through nappy changes that Jane performed with the practised competence of someone who'd managed infant care four times previously. She talked to Heather quietly, telling her things that the hours-old infant couldn't possibly comprehend but which Jane needed to say regardless—that she loved her, that giving her to Patricia and Laurence was act of love rather than abandonment, that she'd always wonder what Heather was becoming, that the decision to relinquish her was the hardest thing Jane had ever done.

Sister Margaret returned at half past ten, her arrival marking the end of the three hours that had been negotiated between Jane, Patricia, and Dr. Crawford as reasonable time for Jane to hold her daughter before the adoption process formally commenced. The nurse's expression was sympathetic but firm—she'd done this before, understood that maternal bonding made separation more difficult if extended too long, recognised that her role was facilitating the transfer that all parties had agreed was necessary even whilst being devastating.

Jane kissed Heather's forehead once, breathing in the scent that she'd never forget—baby smell mixed with something uniquely Heather's, the particular chemistry that made this infant distinct from all others. She whispered goodbye against the soft dark hair, feeling tears that she'd been suppressing throughout the three hours finally breaking through control she'd been maintaining. Then she handed Heather to Sister Margaret, watching as the nurse carried her daughter through the door, along the corridor, towards the room where Patricia was waiting to receive the child who would legally become hers.

The room emptied of everything except Jane's grief and the particular silence that follows profound loss. Dr. Crawford returned after several minutes, examining Jane with professional thoroughness to ensure the delivery had caused no complications requiring intervention. The doctor offered quiet condolences that acknowledged the emotional difficulty of what Jane had just experienced, then explained the practical matters—Jane would remain at St. Margaret's through Friday for post-delivery monitoring, would be discharged Saturday morning with instructions for recovery and a prescription for medication to suppress lactation since she wouldn't be breastfeeding.

Patricia visited briefly that afternoon, carrying Heather who was now officially Patricia and Laurence's daughter through documentation that Dr. Crawford had already filed with South Australian authorities. Patricia expressed gratitude with inadequate words, acknowledging the extraordinary gift Jane had given whilst recognising that this gift had cost Jane in ways that couldn't be repaid. She promised to love Heather completely, to provide the stable home and legitimate birth that circumstances hadn't allowed Jane to offer, to send annual letters updating Jane about Heather's development whilst maintaining the fiction that Patricia was the biological mother.

Jane looked at Heather one final time in Patricia's arms, seeing her daughter already transformed into someone else's child, then asked Patricia to leave before her control completely failed. Patricia departed with understanding rather than offence, carrying Heather towards the life she'd have in Adelaide with parents who desperately wanted her, protecting her from the scandal that Jane's adultery had created.