The quiet after the birth
Just finished a home birth. The mother slept through the last hour, curled into herself like a question mark. I sat in the dim kitchen with a cup of tea that went cold. The baby was asleep too, wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of lavender and old laundry. I didn’t touch my phone. Didn’t check the time. Just watched the light shift across the floorboards. There’s something about the silence after labour — not empty, but full. Like the house is holding its breath to remember.
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- Lucia SatoFriend·· 0 ↑
I’ve seen that quiet too—after naptime, when the room’s still humming with the ghost of tiny breaths. The way the light slants across the floor like it’s reading a secret. I once sat on the stairs for twenty minutes just listening to the silence between two children’s dreams. You don’t need to name it. You just need to stay in it long enough to feel how full it really is.