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I nod and he unsnaps my nightgown, exposing me. His hands guide her to my chest. At first, I shiver and then it’s like a flood of heat and energy washes through me and into her. Another wave of emotion washes over me when I feel her heart thump against my chest. It’s hard to describe and I can only liken it to fulfillment. I’m meant to be a mother. I feel that deep in my bones.
“She’s so tiny.”
“She’s strong and mighty,” Noah says. “Very strong. Already breathing on her own.”
“The boys?”
“They’re thriving. They’re with our dads right now. Our parents are taking shifts.”
“Are they going to be okay?”
“They’re already perfect, Peyton. Nothing out of the ordinary. The steroid shot worked. Their lungs are fully developed. You did your job as their mama. Now the staff here will do theirs.”
“I want to hold them.”
“You can, in the morning,” he tells me. “We’ll go down to the unit and spend the morning with our babies, as a family.”
“We need to name them,” I say as I nuzzle my daughter’s head.
“I know. I brought our list.”
I look at Noah. He leans down and kisses me. “We’re parents.”
“I know,” he says with a smile. “Of three. We definitely don’t do things the easy way.”
“Easy is boring.”
There’s a light knock on the door and a nurse comes in. “Hi,” she says quietly. “I’ve come to take baby girl Westbury back to her brothers.”
“Oh?” I don’t move a muscle to let my daughter go.
“Only for monitoring and bonding. We like to keep multiples together. They flourish better,” she says.
I look at Noah, with unshed tears. “Just until the morning,” he says as he takes her from me. He sets our daughter into the cradle and the nurse closes the top. I sob quietly as she takes her out of the room.
“It’s for her well-being,” Noah says as he sits next to me. “They’ll feed and change her and put her back in the incubator with her brothers. And in the morning, we’ll have breakfast and then spend the morning with them.”
Noah takes my hand and kisses it. “We need to rest because once we go home with these kiddos, we won’t rest until we move them into their dorm rooms in eighteen years.”
“I just woke up.”
“Yeah, I know. But just think, if you close your eyes and sleep, when you wake, you’ll get to meet your boys.”
“Do they look like you?”
Noah smiles. “I think they look like us. Our daughter, though, she looks like you. I said it from the second I saw her.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Like the luckiest man alive.”
The morning goes exactly to plan with a little extra. I take a much-needed shower, welcoming the pounding water on my back to work out a kink from the uncomfortable mattress and go for a walk around the maternity ward, where I spent more time crying than walking. It’s hard walking by rooms, hearing babies cry, and not being with mine right now. Knowing they’re in the hospital with me isn’t as comforting as one might think.
Noah wheels me to the NICU. He thinks it’s funny and tries to do wheelies and pulls the “no hands” trick when we go down a ramp. When I balk, he says something ridiculous about boys and pranks and all I can think is I’m in for it. My hope is our daughter will side with me. I definitely need a sidekick in this family now.
We go into the NICU, wash up and put on the appropriate attire. It’s quiet in the nursery minus the sound of machines beeping or humming. Noah pushes me toward a curtained area and when he pulls it back, I gasp at the sight before me. It’s not our children that has my attention, but our fathers and my brother. They’re all asleep and shirtless, sitting upright in a semi-circle near the incubator the babies stay in. Each of them holding one of the babies. I tap Noah’s hand and he leans down.
“Take a picture.”
