Final from "Timing"

This is strange. Some of the story fragments are rearranging themselves into lines that look like poetry. I kind of like it. Anyway, here's fragment from the end.

The baby came easily once the drug seeped into my spine. I watched in the
mirror positioned overhead as the crown of the baby's head, covered in black
hair, peeked out from the birth canal. There was blood and the caving in of my
flesh and then silence. Time slowed, became a blur. Cry, cry dammit, I
said silently, and then the rush of time speeding up as my daughter chirped her
first tiny cries, which turned to a steady wail. They placed her on my
belly, those tiny red fists shaking, her dark blue eyes taking in their first
sights, and I cried. I sobbed and shook with the pain and beauty of that
day.

They took Hannah Jane to the pediatric ICU for safekeeping, while I rested in my room. Mom stood over the baby's expensive bassinet to begin her sketch, including wires, tubes and all.

In the dream I had that evening, it was not raining. There were no police cars, no ambulances, no flashing red lights. The yard in front of the house on Lemon Street
was bordered by two rose hedges, and in the middle, two children were playing. I stood on the sidewalk watching them play "Mother May I" until they turned and saw me. The little girl ran toward me, her brother close behind her. They were smiling and calling out my name.

Annie, Annie.

I woke up to my husband's voice and the scent of his citrus cologne. Mike's stutter was gone and he proudly informed me that he had seen Hannah.

"Did you make it?" I asked him, though I knew he hadn't.

"She has your eyes Annie. She opened them for just a second when I touched her, and you could see it- she's got your eyes," he said, his smile never fading.

I closed my eyes and thought of the moment when our baby emerged from her serene connectedness, into the separation that was her new life. That moment remained suspended in my memory. It was like a star glittering, whose brilliance moved forward infinitely, even after the star had burned away.