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The sirens are loud in my ears as I am rolled into the ambulance. I feel fear. I mostly feel pain, though. Something is wrong, I've been aware of that since I woke up 20 minutes ago covered in my blood and feeling like someone had gutted me open. I can’t see very well due to the dizziness I felt. But I can make out the blurry outlines of my husband’s face as he follows me into the ambulance. I know everyone else is there too, standing outside in PJs and nightrobes as they watch the EMTs take me away. We’d been staying at the manor for the night after the Waynes’ bi-monthly family dinner.
“She’s losing too much blood.” someone says, but it sounds far away. I feel like I'm underwater.
I think, distantly, that I’m losing consciousness. Not due to the blood loss, I haven't lost enough to be more than dizzy, but definitely due to the overwhelming pain. I know what’s wrong. I’ve known it since I woke up, but I am adamantly not thinking about it right now.
I lose consciousness.
“-her in room Th-”
“-sir you can't be in”
“-losing the”
“-All we could, Sir-”
When I wake up I feel it before I register it fully. I'm on morphine. Something is missing.
I open my eyes blearily. The light in the room is off, but daylight can be seen peaking behind the curtains, giving natural lighting to the room. The room is very nice, one of the reserved rooms saved only for Gotham’s elite the bed is much bigger and far more comfortable than in a normal hospital bed. Dick is in the chair next to my bed. He is staring at the floor, unmoving, unaware that I've woken up. His face is red and puffy and his thumb looks like it had been recently bandaged. He bites his nails to the skin and then some when he's panicked or worried. We had been working on quitting the bad habit but it seems he relapsed.
There are multiple IV drips on me. I was correct about the morphine. Even with the drips, I can still feel the pain. Tears well up in my eyes and spill over. I sniff. That gets Dick’s attention. He doesn't say anything though, and a heavy silence falls over us.
I very carefully lift a hand and lay it on my stomach. I don't do more than shed a few tears.
A knock on the door has me wiping my eyes quickly.
“Mrs Grayson?” The nurse asks quietly. I very carefully sit up a little more on the bed so can see her better.
Dick stands finally and moves next to me. He hovers, not sure if he should touch me or not.
The nurse comes in and offers a sad smile. “I’m sorry for your loss. Would you like to say goodbye?” She offers.
I nod, still not fully processing what’s happening.
The nurse leaves for a moment before coming back with a little bundle of blankets in her arms.
I take the bundle and hold it to my chest, Dick leaning over me, having finally decided to put an arm around my shoulders. I move the blankets out of the way and-
Baby Martha looks so much like her daddy. I can't help the guttural sob that racks through me as the weight of the situation finally settles on me. My baby, only 7 months in the womb, was dead.
“My precious girl.” I cry in agony, holding her closer. She’s long since gone cold, but she looks so peaceful in my arms as if she were only asleep. “You’re so beautiful, hun. You know that? I love you.”
Dick is crying too, hugging me close and sobbing into my neck.
I pepper my little angel's face in kisses before offering her to Dick. He takes her and kisses her forehead.
“Hey, pumpkin. Daddy loves you, baby. I'm so sorry, Martha. I wish I could've got to know you.” He speaks to her quietly, tears falling nonstop and onto the baby in his arms.
We take turns holding her for a while. Eventually, though, we both say our last goodbye and give her one more hug and kiss before handing her back to the nurse. Dick holds me on the bed, shakey breaths are shared between soft forehead kisses and words of love.
The nurse comes back sometime later, several papers in hand. She hands me one with black ink on it first. Hand and footprints.
“Thank you.” I hiccup out.
The nurse gives me a sympathetic smile before handing me the next two items: a certificate of birth and a certificate of death.
“Martha Joy Grayson is such a lovely name.” The nurse says.
“Martha was my grandmother's name,” Dick says quietly. I squeeze his hand comfortingly.
The nurse nodded. “I want you both to know that you aren't alone. I lost my baby the same way 2 years ago. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”
We thank her and she leaves.
I wake in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and panicked. Dick manages to calm me down but the images of my little girl won’t leave my mind. My body feels wrong. Even if my baby died, my body still feels like it gave birth and craves to have the baby with me. When I finally manage to fall back to sleep, it’s broken up and riddled with nightmares.
The bats come by the next day.
Stephanie brings an engraved wooden box with her. In it were the outfit I had been planning to bring Martha home in, pictures of her ultrasound, a clay heart that had her hand and footprints stamped into it, and a necklace with her name on it.
Barbara brings a bag of candles infused with calming essential oils.
Damian brings me and Dick our favorite blanket that we always cuddle up in when we watch movies at the manor.
Duke and Bruce bring flowers.
Cass brings cute plushies.
And Jason brings us fresh clothes from our apartment.
Tears are shed together, grief is shared amongst each other. It’s sad, it's heartbreaking, it’s healing.
The doctors let me know a few days later that the scars that were left on my uterus left us with even less time to have children than before. We already had a slim chance and a short amount of time when we conceived Martha. Now it was even less. My uterus would be nothing more than a large, useless mass of scar tissue before I knew it.
For the next several months I can’t seem to stop crying at everything. It gets tiring and leaves me constantly exhausted. I ended up having to get grief counseling.
Dick isn’t all that much better, but he’s supportive of everything. Anytime I break down he’s always right there at my side. He keeps us going. I get worried that he will leave me. I’m being a terrible wife as of late, unable to do more than cry and sleep. He is always quick to assure me that he would never leave.
“In sickness and health, poorer or better, love. That wasn’t a suggestion, that was a promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
It gets easier. It’s still hard when I think about it too much, but it’s not a struggle to get up and do things now.
We end up getting pregnant again a year and a half later. Both of us fuss and worry over every little thing this time. Especially Dick. Every look or sound of discomfort on my part is met with panicked fluttering on his part.
But everything goes well this time and we end up with another beautiful baby girl. She’s healthy and happy and full of life. Sophie (I named her this time) has her daddy’s eyes and my hair.
When Sophie turns 5 months old we take her to meet her big sister. The baby is unaware of where she is at or why. She sleeps soundly through the whole ordeal, but it’s nice to know that we could do that. It brought a peace of mind neither Dick nor I knew we needed.
Sophie ends up being a daddy’s girl, through and through. She sticks to him like glue. When she’s old enough, she toddles after him while he walks through the house. Dick loves it. She’s his princess and he treats her like such.
Dick’s favorite noise becomes the loud pattering of tiny feet and a loud, “DADDY’S HOME!” before she jumps into his arms when he comes home from work.
We ended up adopting a 2-month-old boy. Dick finds the baby in a trashcan while on patrol. The bio parents are found and quickly arrested for child abandonment.
We named the baby John. Sophie is very happy to be a big sister, but she does get sad when she can't hold the baby by herself. She is only 4 after all.
John grows to be a mama’s boy. He clings to me constantly. He's shy and likes to hide in my arms or behind my legs when he gets nervous.
While Sophie is loud and rambunctious, John is quiet and timid.
I lay awake at night sometimes, a 7-year-old on my left and a 3-year-old on my right, what Martha’s personality would have been like. She would have been the oldest. She would have been 8, almost 9 now. My chest aches and I still cry on her birthday. Once a year I take the kids to see Martha’s grave. Bruce paid to have a sandbox installed next to the gravestone so her siblings could still play with her.
Sometimes I wake up to crying in the middle of the night. I find Dick with the memory box in his lap, cradling the clay hearts to his chest. I sit with him, wrap him in a hug, and let him cry into my shoulder. Sometimes I cry with him.
Eventually, Sophie is old enough to understand the weight of our yearly visit to the sandbox grave. She talks quietly to the grave, telling the sister she never met about herself, telling her about their brother, about the kids she goes to school with, about the sports she plays and the hobbies she has.
Dick and I visit her grave once every year for the rest of our lives.
Martha Joy Grayson
Born a Sleeping Angel
Loved by many
Never forgotten
XX/XX/XXXX-
XX/XX/XXXX