What makes me cry?

The guilt that I delivered you early
When you should have had twelve weeks more.
The wondering if it was something I did,
Or was my womb too small?
Then I look at your long limbs
And marvel at your weight.
Thinking, how would you have fit
If, perhaps, you had been late?

Leaving you alone in there
While I leave and travel home.
I feel that you should be by my side
Or better still, within.
You should be listening to sounds
Right here with me.
I want to see all your developmental bounds
And have you share with me.

Changing your nappy
For once, that might be pleasant
While others are moaning;
“I really don’t need this present.”
They don’t want to clean up
After all their offspring did.

Breast feeing is such a chore,
While I don’t get that chore at all.
No, for me, it’s the electric pump.
With the noise
The sterilising and all that bumph.
You should be here
To nuzzle and need
For you would do it better
Than any electrical feed.

But you should be still inside,
And sometimes it makes me bitter
Because we missed out
On these three months together.
I had such plans for us,
Sharing my days and nights with you.
And now I can only look on
With tubes and wires breath for you
And you from within are gone.

And what of the bump
That was supposed to grow
So enormous and make me so slow.
No trouble tying shoes for me,
And only a little hard to get up.
And look, its nearly gone – you see.
I know its silly but I miss it so
The maternity clothes hang limp
Like wet washing they drip
Off my more slender frame and slip.