could he say? It wasn’t as if they’d been together these past few months, planning for this day. Alyssa had been on her own. Of course she’d picked names for the babies.
“Grace and Gretchen are beautiful names.” A part of him wished their last names would be listed as his, rather than Alyssa’s last name of Knight, but that wasn’t meant to be.
“My grandmother’s name was Grace and my mom’s name was Louise, so I wanted to include both their names in their memory if the babies were girls,” she explained, as if expecting some sort of argument.
“Alyssa, the names are fine,” he reassured her. “I love them, don’t worry.”
She nodded and relaxed. “When can we hold them?” she asked Kim. “I’m anxious to see my babies.”
“Just a few more minutes and the neonatal team should be finished with them.” Kim began cleaning up the delivery area. “One good thing about having small babies is that you didn’t need an episiotomy and there are no vaginal tears either. You should heal up very nicely.”
“One bright spot as I’m trying to breast-feed two babies,” Alyssa said with a dry laugh. But then she caught the doctor’s hand, giving it a grateful squeeze. “Thanks, Kim. For everything.”
“My pleasure.” Kim glanced at Jadon, including him as well. “Congrats to both of you.”
“Knight baby girl number two is three pounds, three ounces, and is seventeen and a quarter inches long,” Renee announced. “She’s breathing on her own, too.”
Three-three wasn’t bad at all. Jadon grinned as the tight knot in his stomach relaxed a bit. “Gretchen Louise. The younger, smaller baby is Gretchen.”
“And the older one is Grace Aubrey,” Alyssa chimed in. “Can we hold them now?”
“You sure can. Here’s Grace for you, Mom. And Gretchen for you, Dad.” Renee and another nurse handed each of them a tightly wrapped pink bundle. “We don’t want to keep them out of the isolettes too long. We still need to keep a close eye on them, but bonding is important, too.”
Jadon gazed at Gretchen’s small, perfect face, her tiny lips, her button nose and her tiny, tiny eyelashes with an overwhelming sense of awe.
He glanced at Alyssa and in that moment they shared a special intimacy, a bond that shook him to the soles of his feet.
Together, they’d created these baby girls.
Looking at Alyssa holding Grace and the way Gretchen slept so peacefully in his arms, he realized what he’d told her earlier was true. There was no turning back. He was a father now.
This new, precious family was a part of his future. His and Alyssa’s future.
If only he knew how in the world he was going to make it work.
Alyssa rested for a few hours after the birth as the process had totally worn her out, but when she awoke she was alone in her room. She missed her babies. On the bedside table were two photographs, so she picked them up to gaze at the small pictures of Grace and Gretchen that the neonatal resuscitation team had given her.
The babies were small, but doing amazingly well. Kim had explained that the stress of her labor over the past few days had helped the babies develop enough surfactant in their lungs to enable them to breathe on their own.
At least, so far they were breathing on their own. The girls might need some help from a CPAP machine, which wasn’t as invasive as a breathing tube and ventilator, if they didn’t maintain regular breathing patterns, keeping an acceptable level of oxygen in the blood.
Renee had explained the concerns about intermittent apnea, a common phenomenon with preemies. They could breathe on their own, but it was almost as if they exerted so much energy to do the work they got tired out and stopped breathing for a few seconds.
So the baby girls would need to be on the heart and apnea monitors for a while, not to mention kept warm since their tiny brains weren’t fully developed yet to keep their temperatures stable. Hence the pictures, since Alyssa couldn’t have the babies housed in her room.
She was relieved they were doing so well.
Yet she didn’t want to look at pictures, she wanted to hold her daughters, touch them. Cuddle them.
Was Jadon in the neonatal nursery with them now? She was fairly certain he was. She bit her lip, anxiety creeping back into her chest. He’d been so wonderful through all this, taken on the role of being her birthing coach without making her feel guilty.
Her baby girls were seven weeks early. What would she do once they were big enough to come home? She knew she shouldn’t just plan on going back to Jadon’s house but if she didn’t, how would she manage to nurse them both while still managing to get some rest?
Was Jadon’s invitation to stay with him still open? She didn’t want her babies to suffer in any way. What if after a few weeks of no sleep he changed his mind?
Stop looking for trouble, she warned herself. Take it slowly, one day at a time, and the future would sort itself out when it was ready.
Sage advice. Now, if only she could heed it.
She swung her legs out of the bed and stood, feeling only a slight twinge of discomfort after her delivery. Reaching for a robe, she put it on, then walked out into the hallway to get directions to the neonatal intensive care unit.
“Right here,” Amanda, a helpful nurse, informed her. “We actually don’t call them neonatal ICUs any more, we call it a level-three nursery. But it’s right next to the level-two and level-one nurseries. As your babies progress, they’ll move down to the less acute area.”
“Good to know,” Alyssa admitted. Neonatal was not her area of expertise.
In the level-three nursery, most of the babies lying in their isolettes looked extremely tiny. She was somewhat relieved to realize her daughters were the largest babies in the group.
She stood in front of their isolettes, surprised to note Jadon wasn’t there. One nurse approached with a warm smile.
“Hi, my name is Carla. I’m the second-shift nurse taking care of Grace and Gretchen.”
“Hello, I’m Alyssa, the proud mother of these two. Oh, look, Gretch is waking up,” she said, leaning over when Gretchen began to stir.
“She is waking up. It’s about time as she’s been sleeping quite a bit. What a wonderful early Christmas present you have, hmm?”
Alyssa smiled weakly. “A better Christmas present would be to have them home with me.”
“True, but if they grow nicely and don’t run into trouble, that is a distinct possibility. Now, would you like to hold them? Both at once or one at a time?”
“Maybe just Gretchen, since she’s awake.” Alyssa figured she’d need to learn how to manage both babies at the same time eventually, but for now she thought easing into the process of learning about her daughters might be the better
