Jordan climbs in the driver’s seat, and Lake gets in the back. He starts the truck and speeds down the driveway. The gate is already open and we drive through. He clicks the button on his phone and it slams shut.
I grab Jordan’s free hand.
We reach the hospital in half the time it normally would take. Then I’m led to my private room. Two hours later, I have monitors on my stomach, and Jordan has climbed into bed with me.
“Um.” I grit my teeth and dig my face into Jordan’s neck as I’m hit with another contraction.
He rubs my back and kisses the top of my head to comfort me. Once the contraction ends, I lie back in bed. I am already exhausted.
I feel a sharp pain in my stomach. My eyes widen, and Jordan’s do too when he sees my distressed expression. The monitors start going off, and Jordan climbs out of bed and runs out of the room, yelling. Nurses come into the room, and they put the Doppler on my stomach.
“The cord is wrapped around one of their necks! Immediate cesarean.”
They start yelling, and everyone rushes around the room.
Wrapped around their necks!
Pure fear rushes threw me. I need Jordan. He’s pale as a ghost. That makes me ten times more scared. Jordan doesn’t freak out or get scared. My bed moves as they wheel me out of the room. Tears fall. I’m so afraid. Jordan walks over to me and kisses my forehead. I am pushed out of the room and down a hallway.
Pain and gut-wrenching fear.
That’s all I feel as I watch them roll her away from me and down the hallway, through some double doors.
“You can go in with her. Go change into this.” A nurse hands me some clothes.
I rush into the bathroom. I need to be with her. I need her to be okay, and I need our babies to be okay.
I just need her to be okay.
I walk to the nurse, who is waiting on me. She leads me down the hallway toward Alisha. We walk through a set of double doors and into another room.
There she is. The bottom half of her is hidden from view, and a chair is beside her head. After walking over to her, I sit down. After scooting forward, I press a kiss to her cheek, letting it linger. Her head moves over, and I pull back. Her eyes are filled with fear. That kills me on the inside more than anything. I grab her hand and press her open hand on my jaw.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I reassure her.
She nods, a tear falling. I notice movement and see the doctor moving behind the screen.
“So, Momma, we never decided on a name for a baby girl and a baby boy.”
Her expression lightens, and she looks less afraid. “I really like Vanessa,” she whispers.
“I like Riley. What about our son?” I stroke her face.
She closes her eyes. She opens her eyes and smiles at me. “We should totally name them Harley and Ryder.”
I laugh because it’s fitting. “I’m not sure they would be amused later on in life.”
She nods in agreement. “What about Noah?”
“I like that one, Angel.”
“We have a boy!” a man yells.
I look over and see him holding my son. He isn’t crying. Panic sets in, and the nurse suctions his nose out. The doctor pats him on the bottom, and he cries. I almost fall out of my seat in relief. Everything is going to be okay. My son is the one who had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. They take him across the room.
A minute or so later, I hear another piercing scream. My baby girl. I look up and see him pass her off to the nurse.
“She wants to breastfeed,” I tell the nurse closest to me.
She nods and walks across the room to where my babies are.
Alisha is grinning from ear to ear, and I grin along with her. Everything is going to be okay. No more kids though. I will not go through something like this again. Never again.
Pressing my forehead against hers, I whisper, “The start of all of ours forever.”
She nods. This is the start of our kids’ lives and another chapter in ours.
When I wake up, Jordan is shirtless, leaning back in a reclined chair, holding Noah and Vanessa to his bare chest. They are in only their diapers, and a blanket is covering their backs to make sure they don’t freeze.
“They are beautiful,” I whisper as I see their little features. I haven’t had a chance to hold them yet. I was in a lot of pain because of the C-section, so once they gave me another dose of pain meds, I conked out.
“You’re awake.”
I lift my gaze from my babies to Jordan. I smile at him.
He smiles back. “Want to hold them?”
I nod rapidly. I slowly scoot up in bed and press the button to raise me up halfway. “Do they know I want to breastfeed?”
“I told them, angel. I had those bottles you pumped.”
My milk came in a couple of days ago, and I froze the milk because I figured why not start saving what I can now. Right now, I am beyond grateful.