I kept turning in bed, pressing my palm against the mound of my stomach.
My baby hadn't moved much that evening, just a few subtle stretches that almost felt like soft waves under my skin.
But i wasn't worried — not this time.
Somehow, I knew she was resting too.
As if she was gathering her strength.
As if she knew tomorrow was coming.
And she did come.
Not with a dramatic start, not with my water breaking in a mall or screaming in a taxi like those cliché birth scenes in films.
She came quietly.
Steadily.
Through pain that curled and dug into me like claws.
Through sweat, fear, and breath that caught in my throat.
It started with a cramp.
At around 3:12 a.m., I shifted in bed and felt it. Low. Deep.
Not like the others i'd had in the past few months.
This one had weight.
Purpose.
Like my body wasn't asking — it was telling me something.
"Yaya," I whispered hoarsely. "Yaya Minda."
She was already half-awake in the armchair by the window, wrapped in her shawl.
It was instinct now, the way she jolted up just hearing the change in my voice.
"Anak? What is it?" she asked, crossing the room in a heartbeat.
I tried to speak but winced as another wave hit me — sharper this time, deeper.
My hand flew to my belly and I gritted my teeth.
"I think… I think it's time."
Yaya's eyes widened, but she didn't panic.
She nodded firmly and helped me sit up, already reaching for the overnight bag we kept by the door, the one she'd double-checked a hundred times in the last few weeks.
We didn't even wait for the driver.
Yaya called for an ambulance, and i sat in the back, gripping the rails with everything i had, breathing the way they told me in birthing class, but forgetting half of it from the sheer pressure building in my lower back.
And yet, through it all… I kept whispering to my baby.
"Not long now, anak… just hold on, mama's here. We're almost there."
The lights in the delivery room were cold.
Too bright.
The walls were too white.
The sheets too stiff.
The smell of antiseptic stung my nose. But none of that mattered.
I was too far gone now.
My world had narrowed into one thing: bringing my child into it.
They asked me if i wanted anesthesia.
I nodded, barely able to respond anymore through the contractions that were now screaming through my entire body like lightning bolts.
Yaya Minda was beside me the whole time, her hands pressed around mine like a prayer.
She kept wiping my forehead, whispering things i couldn't hear anymore, her voice drowned beneath the sound of my own pain.
There were times i wanted to give up.
When the pressure was unbearable.
When i felt my body tearing in ways i didn't think it could survive.
But i couldn't stop.
Not now.
Not when she was this close.
Then — a pause.
A sharp inhale.
A moment of silence so dense it felt like the world itself stopped spinning.
And then—
A cry.
A wail that burst through the air like a miracle.
High-pitched. Fierce.
Alive.
My child.
My daughter.
I didn't realize i was crying until Yaya Minda pressed the side of her hand gently to my cheek, catching the tear before it reached my lips.
"You did it," she whispered, voice cracking. "She's here, anak. She's here."
They placed her on my chest, tiny, pink, sticky with life.
Her skin was wrinkled, and her cries were small but strong.
She blinked once, twice, her lashes barely visible, her mouth opening in tiny gasps like she was just learning to breathe.
I held her against my skin and broke.
Everything inside me shattered and reformed.
All the pain disappeared.
All the fear melted.
All that remained was her.
"Celestine," I whispered, running a finger down her soft, warm back. "Celestine Andrea."
She shifted, her cheek pressing to the curve of my collarbone like she belonged there.
Like she knew me.
Like she'd been waiting for me as long as i'd been waiting for her.
Gutierrez.
That would be her last name.
Not because i was ashamed.
But because i was whole.
We didn't need anything else.
-
Back at the room, hours later, the sun had already risen — casting golden streaks across the white bedsheets.
Yaya Minda sat near the foot of my bed, watching over us like a sentinel.
Her eyes were swollen from tears, but her smile never faded.
I looked down at Celestine, who was now swaddled and asleep in my arms, her breath steady, her fingers twitching.
"I'm sorry, baby," I murmured. "For all the times i almost gave up. For all the times i doubted myself."
She didn't answer, of course.
But the weight of her on my chest, the steady beat of her heart, felt like forgiveness.
Like grace.
Later that night, alone in the quiet of the hospital room, I whispered stories to her.
How she came into this world with a scream that broke something open in me.
How i thought i was strong before — but didn't truly understand strength until i pushed her into this world with every fiber of my being.
I told her she was wanted.
So wanted.
So loved.
And i promised — with every breath in my body — that i would never let her feel otherwise.
She stirred, just a little, and i smiled.
"Welcome, Celestine Andrea Gutierrez," I whispered.
"My love. My light. My reason."
And in that moment, I finally understood what it meant to belong to someone — not because they claimed you, but because you gave them everything, freely.
Not as a daughter.
Not as a girlfriend.
Not even as a child star turned heiress.
But as a mother.
As her mother.
And there, in that sterile room, with the hum of machines and the smell of milk and skin and the faint lull of sleep pulling at me, I finally felt peace.