Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Thirty-Three

AUDREY

T his moment is nothing like I imagined. I imagined dim lights and soft music. I imagined holding Michael’s hand and him kissing my sweaty forehead as our baby was laid gently across my chest. I imagined soaking in all the love and bringing our second child into a room full of joy.

Instead, my babies were whisked away while I was dying. They were carried by someone who wasn’t me, while the doctors fought to save my life. Then they were cared for by someone else while my body healed. Not fully, but enough.

Sarah pushes me down a hallway so bright it hurts my eyes.

My incision aches a dull, slow pain, but moths swirl in my stomach. I pull the blanket on my lap tighter around me, and hold my breath as I’m wheeled towards my babies. Fluorescent tubes buzz overhead, guiding us towards the NICU ward. She pauses before we enter.

“You ready?”

I’m not. I’m scared. But instead of telling her and letting the tidal wave of emotions out on some poor, unsuspecting midwife, I nod. She guides me through the automatic doors and points out the hand sanitiser I must use before we go any further.

The rhythmic beeping of many, too many , machines echoes through the room. It smells like bleach and citrus, it’s far too clinical and not at all homely. But even so, it is my boys’ home for the foreseeable future. Sarah wheels me in between two enclosed cribs that look far too large for the tiny babies inside them.

The sterile air hitches in my throat. Sitting on a cold green plastic chair between the beds, Michael rests his head against the plastic wall of one. His hand stretches out to rest on the other. His eyes are closed and for a moment it looks like he could be sleeping, but he stands at the sound of my soft cries.

“This,” he says, taking my hand and directing my attention to the baby on my right, “is Uno. Name definitely not official. Baby one.”

Tiny fingers cling in two little fists beside red cheeks. His eyes are squeezed shut, fighting against the dim lighting of the room. Four little round pads are spread across his delicate chest, with wires that link to the machine next to his crib, and an oxygen tube sits under his nose. And he is perfect.

My fingers coast along the side of the crib, itching to reach in and hold him.

Michael shifts my attention to my left. “And this is Henry. Name also not official, but I couldn’t keep calling them baby one and baby two, and I know it was on your list.”

“Henry.” He also has a breathing tube, and wires attached to his chest. A monitor is fastened around his foot, but even in his sleep he wriggles against it. He has the same button nose as his brother and his dad, but his cheeks are chubbier. “It’s perfect.”

I turn to Sarah, who has stepped back to give us space. “Can I?”

“Of course.”

Her and Michael help me into the chair, which isn’t the comfiest but is miles better than the wheelchair. Once I’ve adjusted my position Michael shows me how to pull down my top.

“Skin on skin is good for them. Kangaroo care.”

“This is Henry,” Sarah whispers, handing me my tiny baby boy. She guides him to my chest, rearranging all his wires and tubes until he is comfortably snuggled against my skin.

My free hand wipes at the tears on my cheeks before they drop onto his little head.

“And this is Uno.”

Sarah tucks him against me. Again she adjusts all the cords until he is nestled on my chest, next to his brother.

“We’re not keeping that name.” I laugh, but it’s barely a sigh as the gravity of the moment falls onto my shoulders.

“I know.” Michael stands behind me, with his arms around my shoulders and my heart in his hands. He kisses my neck, just below my ear. “I love you.”

I turn to face him. Kissing him on his cheek. My mouth lingers until he turns into me and our lips collide. But it’s not sexy or passionate or rushed or wild. It’s calm and laden with sheer delight and it’s all encompassing. It’s love. For each other, for our boys.

“What about William?”

Michael leans back, only a little but enough to wipe my cheeks dry. “I like it,” he says as he reaches down to place his hand on William’s back.

I stayed there for hours, that first day. I helped feed Henry and William when it was time, crying that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed after all. I knew it was a stretch goal, to breastfeed twins when my body had struggled to make enough milk for Maisie, but even so the finality of the decision hurt. Like I wasn’t even given a chance to try. I wriggled in the chair when my bum turned numb and I held in my pain as the medication started to wear off. Michael sat on the floor at my feet, leaning his head on my lap. His breaths turned heavy as he fell asleep.

I stayed long after Sarah went home until eventually, a different midwife came and told me I needed rest. Michael helped settle the boys into their cribs and held my weight as I moved back to the wheelchair. He pushed me back to my room and he stayed by my side as a new dose of medication helped me fall into a deep sleep

In the days that followed, I lost all track of time. My hours were spent sleeping or sitting on that cold green chair with my boys on my chest. Michael seemed to never leave the hospital but always managed to be clean, sneaking out while I slept to eat and rest and shower.

Maisie came to visit and somehow she understood to be calm, to talk quietly, to be gentle as she held her brothers’ hands. My parents offered to come up, but I told them to wait until we were home. Overhearing the conversation, Michael told his parents to do the same.

And then one day, when my incision had started to heal and my body was functioning to a satisfactory level, I had to go home. Without my babies. The wound in my stomach may have been healing, but the one through my heart was sliced a little deeper.

“They just need a little more time,” Sarah said as I walked out of the NICU that day. Tears that had barely stopped since the day I first met them streamed across my face and onto my shirt.

At home, a new nightmare began. Waking every few hours knowing it was time to feed my boys even though they were miles away, still at the hospital, still being watched around the clock.

Maisie started school. We saw her off in a sea of tiny new students and teary-eyed families. Callum and me and Cassidy and Michael, all four of her grown up people waving until she was so far into the room we couldn’t see her. And she thrived. Making new friends and learning how to write letters and read sounds. But she spends more time there than she does with me, and it eats at my insides that I’ve been so distant. So torn in every direction that no one seems to get all of me because I’m always so distracted by who’s missing out.

I spend every waking moment juggling my time between being home and being present for Maisie and being here, at the hospital.

And when I was here, I was charting progress like markers on a map. One where the road was bumpy and the destination was the only thing keeping us going. Home day. I dreaded that the boys might be separated. I cried a thousand tears when Henry fed from a bottle instead of a syringe, but William needed a feeding tube inserted when he wasn’t putting on weight.

Days were tracked with milestones. William’s feeding tube coming out after only two days. Both boys maintaining their oxygen levels without help from the tubes. They were putting on weight, feeding well, and holding their body temperature. By every definition they were overachieving premature babies.

It was wonderful, but still, we waited. For almost a month I held my breath at every visit, waiting for the news to drop. Waiting to be told they could come home.

“You ready?”

Sarah has become my comfort. My companion when I was here and Michael couldn’t be. She saw me laugh, saw me cry. Helped me hold both boys, helped me feed them, change them.

She showed me how to love them, how to be what they needed when everything still felt not quite right.

Tears well in her eyes as she peels back the first round pad from William’s chest, and one escapes down her cheek when she moves on to the other three. She turns to repeat the process for Henry, while I do up William’s tiny onesie.

I pick him up, cradling him close. “Say goodbye,” I whisper in his ear.

Michael steps forward, holding the first capsule in place on the green plastic chair that after four weeks oddly feels like home now. I smile at him, loosely. It means nothing. Our relationship is strained, at best. When I wasn’t here, he was. When he wasn’t, I have no idea where he was. Was he going home, to the house I opened up for him, even when I wasn’t there? Was he returning to his bachelor pad? Was he at work or at the gym? Was he living his life when I had been forced to hit pause on my own? I don’t resent him for it. I don’t. I just can’t pretend I’m thrilled about it either. The idea of us playing happy families when the boys were born is just another dream that was taken from me.

I buckle William in place. The padded seat belt envelops his minute frame. My hand lingers on his cheek and I trail my fingers down his arm to the tiny wristband that still says “Baby Baker One.”

We repeat the process for Henry. Then wrap their sage green blankets over them.

Michael picks up both carriers, his muscles strained not against the weight, but against the awkward shape of the car seats. I turn to Sarah. Her cheeks are wet as she checks off the last few bits of paperwork.

“You’re off,” she says. Her lips turn up and she grins the biggest smile I’ve seen from her. “I’ll miss you, but gosh I’m happy to see you all go.”