Page 11 of The Other Mother

MISMATCH

I sit cross-legged on the hardwood floor of the nursery, my back against the cream-colored wall. Eva sleeps in her bassinet two feet away, her chest rising and falling in that rapid rhythm that still makes me hold my breath sometimes, waiting to make sure the next one comes.

My phone sits beside me, screen glowing in the dim afternoon light filtering through the blackout curtains.

I scroll through my camera roll, searching for comfort in the digital proof of Eva's first days.

Here's the first photo, me holding her in the hospital's standard bassinet, my face puffy and exhausted but smiling.

Adam hovers in the background, looking awkward in his wrinkled button-down, the same shirt he'd been wearing for thirty-six hours.

I swipe to the next photo. A nurse adjusting Eva's swaddle, her name tag reading "June" in cheerful blue letters. I remember June. She had kind eyes and showed me how to burp Eva properly, her hands gentle but confident as she demonstrated on the practice doll.

The third photo makes me pause, but not for the reason it once would have.

Eva is swaddled in that same plain pink, brown-trim blanket I found days ago— the one with the wrong initials, the one Adam shrugged off like it meant nothing.

But I already chased that thread. What catches me now is something I hadn’t noticed before.

Her bracelet.

My frown deepens as I study the phone screen. "Did I bring that one?" I whisper to the empty room. "Or did someone else wrap her in it?"

I check the timestamps again. The photos are only three hours apart.

The bracelet shouldn't have changed. Hospital policy is strict about these things.

I remember the orientation video they made us watch, the stern-faced administrator explaining how every item that touches the babies is tracked and documented .

Something cold settles in my stomach.

I need clarity. I need facts. I push myself up from the floor, my legs stiff from sitting, and walk to my dresser.

The keepsake box sits on top, pushed to the back corner where I won't accidentally see it every day.

I've been avoiding it since we brought Eva home, afraid that opening it would somehow make everything feel too real, too permanent.

The box is small and wooden, a gift from my mother with "Baby's First Memories" burned into the lid in flowing script.

Inside, I find the tiny knitted hat the hospital sent us home with, still smelling faintly of that newborn scent that makes my chest ache.

There's a single baby sock, impossibly small, that somehow got separated from its mate.

And underneath, wrapped in tissue paper, is Eva's hospital ID bracelet.

I unfold the tissue carefully. The plastic bracelet is smaller than my thumb, white with black printing: Matthews / 0716-C

I stare at it, my heart beginning to race for reasons I can't quite name. Something about the numbers feels wrong, but I can't place what.

I walk to Eva's bassinet, my bare feet silent on the plush area rug Adam insisted we needed. She's still sleeping, her tiny fist curled near her cheek in that way that makes her look like she's thinking deep thoughts. I gently lift her ankle, careful not to wake her.

I cross to the dresser and open the keepsake box, the one with the tiny hat and the hospital footprints card. Under the hat is the infant ID band we brought home, the plastic still curled to newborn size.

It reads: Matthews / 0738-B.

My chest tightens. “That’s not the same.”

I read my notes again. The infant band in the keepsake box doesn’t match the infant band I can see in the hospital photo.

With shaking fingers, I open my phone again and zoom in on one of the hospital photos. The one where June is handing Eva to me for the first time, her face scrunched and red from crying. I can just make out the hospital bracelet on Eva's tiny ankle: 0722-D .

I drop the phone like it's burned me.

Three bracelets. Three different numbers. One baby.

I'm gasping now, short shallow breaths that make the room spin slightly. I sink into the rocking chair Adam's mother gave us, the one I complained about because it doesn't match our decor but that I secretly love because it cradles me just right when I feed Eva at night.

My fingers fly across my phone screen as I search frantically: Do baby ID tags change in hospital?

The results load slowly, each second stretching like an hour.

The first result makes my blood run cold: Mother and infant hospital bracelet mismatch procedures.

I click on it, my hands trembling.

“All infants are tagged at birth with a unique identification number that must match their mother's bracelet at all times. Hospital protocol requires that these numbers remain consistent throughout the entire stay. If identification bands do not match at discharge, hospital policy is to immediately flag potential misidentification and halt release of both mother and infant until proper verification can be completed.”

I stare at the words until they blur together. Read them again. The room feels smaller suddenly, the walls pressing in. My stomach rolls with a nausea that has nothing to do with lingering pregnancy hormones.

"Maybe one was a backup," I whisper to myself, grasping for any rational explanation. "Maybe they had to reprint them."

But even as I say it, I know hospitals don't play games with identification. Not when it comes to babies. The stories are too horrific and the lawsuits too devastating. Every hospital employee is trained to treat ID bracelets like sacred artifacts.

I pull out my hospital go-bag from the closet, the same navy canvas tote I packed and repacked obsessively for weeks before Eva was born. Maybe there's proof inside that I brought the floral blanket myself. Maybe there's a receipt, a note, something that will make this all make sense.

I dump everything onto the nursery floor.

Maternity pads, still in their packaging.

The nursing nightgowns I never wore because they made me feel exposed and vulnerable.

Travel-sized shampoo that smells like vanilla and reminds me of the morning my water broke.

But no blanket. No receipt. No explanation .

I look at the hospital photo again, the one with Eva wrapped in the plain pink, brown-trim blanket.

The image is crystal clear on my phone screen, every detail sharp and undeniable.

In that moment, staring at her tiny face, I feel it again.

The same sensation that washed over me when Adam first placed her in my arms.

She doesn't feel like mine.

The thought hits me like a physical blow, and I immediately hate myself for thinking it.

What kind of mother thinks that about her own baby?

What kind of woman questions whether the child she carried for nine months, the baby she pushed into the world after fourteen hours of labor, actually belongs to her?

But the numbers don't lie. The bracelets don't lie.

I stumble to my nightstand and pull out the composition notebook I've been using to track Eva's feeding schedule. My hands shake as I flip to a clean page and begin writing, the pen moving frantically across the lined paper:

Bracelet A (my wrist band taped in the baby book): 0716-C

Bracelet B (infant band in the keepsake box): 0738-B

Bracelet C (infant band visible in the hospital photo): 0722-D

I stop to think. Hospitals print multiples at birth, but they’re supposed to match. Different numbers mean either a re-band after a room switch, or something worse. Not knowing where else to go from here, I continue with the list .

Blanket discrepancy: striped vs. plain pink with brown trim (“G. Matthews”)

Car seat: uses white, but neighbor mentioned gray

I write and write, documenting every discrepancy I can remember, every moment that felt off. The pen scratches against the paper, the only sound in the room besides Eva's soft breathing and the hum of the baby monitor.

The monitor suddenly lights up red, Eva's cry piercing the afternoon quiet. But I don't get up. I can't move. I'm frozen in place, staring at the list I've created, at the evidence that something is very, very wrong.

The numbers smear as Eva’s cries climb. I press harder, forcing the pen to scratch the paper. If I leave it in my head, I might forget everything.