I shift closer to him until my chest is pressed up against his, and let my hands linger against his firm abs. “I love you so much,” I declare, feeling my heart double in size at the love I feel for this man, my husband.
“Not as much as I love you,” he says before descending his lips onto mine. I find myself falling under his spell, entranced with his smell, touch and feel. And now that I’m carrying his baby we made together in an act of loving passion, knowing that I have a piece of him growing inside me, makes me fall deeper in love with him. The thought of having another baby always scared me. I was positive I wouldn’t be able to cope … that if I was placed in the same situation that led me to almost losing Lily I would hit breaking point, but now that I have the strength of Ashton, I know I can cope with just about anything that life throws at me.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I now understand that it isn’t about defying the bad in life and surviving life’s curveballs, but it’s about embracing the bad and turning it into a positive, turning it into strength. In the past I could have allowed the evil to weaken my soul, to destroy every living cell of my body, but instead I found the strength in an unexpected place. I found it in the love of my life.
Ashton is not only my strength, he’s my hero, soul mate and my best friend too, and no matter what life throws at us next, I know as long as I have him by my side, I can survive anything.
Seven months later
TODAY IS THE DAY. The day that I become a father. Of course I already feel like a father to Lily-Mai since I love her like she’s my own, but my daughter, my flesh and blood—yes we’re having a girl—is moments away from being welcomed into the world. It’s three weeks earlier than most pregnancies but this hasn’t been your average pregnancy, and to get to this stage is beyond anything we could have imagined. Seven months ago when Ava told me she was pregnant, she made me the happiest guy on this earth. The moment we landed back in Seattle I couldn’t wait a moment longer to find out how far along Ava was, so we got a cab straight to the hospital. After numerous tests and a transvaginal ultrasound, we were told the baby was healthy at eight weeks gestation and that her cervix and uterus were normal.
I couldn’t help but chuckle when I realized the conception was around the time of my brother’s wedding in Texas, well … our joint wedding since we crashed it with our own impromptu ceremony. We had so much sex that weekend I’m not surprised she got pregnant. We were at it like rabbits.
With Ava’s history of premature labor, and the previous complications that resulted with the early arrival of Lily, the OB/GYN explained how she would keep a close eye on Ava’s cervix and uterus with regular appointments to see how she progressed. After that first hospital appointment, we were able to breathe for a moment … and things were steady up until Ava hit her eighteenth week when she began to bleed. She automatically assumed the worst, and if I’m being honest I had my worries too, but I managed to hide it from Ava because the last thing I wanted was to add to her anxiety. From a doctor’s standpoint I knew I shouldn’t have let myself panic without further investigation, but for the first time in my life I became the parent. I found myself in a similar situation my patients’ parents find themselves in and I understood exactly how they felt; looking down at their baby who shouldn’t even be born yet and wondering if they would survive.
After an emergency appointment with Dr. Flanagan, it came to our attention that Ava had cervical insufficiency, which causes the cervix to shorten and dilate prematurely. Thankfully it was caught in time for Ava to undergo a cerclage procedure where a stitch is put in place to close the cervix. Once that was done, her pregnancy was smooth sailing. The aim was to get her to a healthy gestation of thirty-six or thirty-seven weeks and then take the stitch out to allow natural labor to begin. Miraculously, Ava’s managed to hold our baby girl until thirty-seven weeks. And oh boy was it a beautiful sight to behold. Just watching Ava’s stomach continue to grow with our baby was overwhelming, yet sexy as hell. Since the moment she told me she was pregnant, my hormones have been haywire and I’ve constantly wanted to jump her bones. There’s just something so incredibly sexy about a pregnant woman, especially my pregnant woman. But frustratingly we’ve not been able to have sex ever since she had the stitch put in as it was highly recommended by the doctor to abstain from sexual intercourse until the end of the pregnancy. I was a hundred percent behind the doctor’s decision, as I didn’t want to risk tearing the stitch and inducing premature labor. We were desperate for our baby to stay safe in the warmth of Ava’s womb for as long as possible, and we weren’t going to let anything jeopardize that. However, that’s not to say Ava didn’t make good use of her tongue because she did—we both did.
Returning to the now, we’re inside the operating room, my hand clutched tight into Ava’s and my mask-covered lips pressed gently against her forehead trying to calm her down. Ava wanted a natural birth, but because of the complications with her uterus during Lily’s birth, a cesarean section is the only option.
I can see the surgeon and medical staff—my colleagues—out of the corner of my eye preparing to make the surgical cut, and I’m thankful for the protector screen that conceals her view of the surgery because if she took one look at the surgical instruments they’re about use on her it would take more than my gentle touch to put her at ease.
“You okay, baby?” I ask through my protective mask.
She nods a little apprehensively but smiles through the nerves. “Yeah I’m okay … I just want to meet our baby girl.”
I roll my spin seat closer to her until I’m eye to eye with Ava. “Me too …”
“Can you tell me what they’re doing?” She almost pleads, and has a terrified look in her eyes. She hates that everything is blocked from her view. She hates being helpless.
I chuckle low at her question. “Hell no … I’m trying to calm you, not add to the scare factor. The less you know the better, baby. Trust me.”
“I sometimes don’t know if being with a doctor is a blessing or a curse,” she says with a slanted smile and I shake my head, marveled at the way she can smile when her delicate hand shakes within mine. I lean in closer until my face is only inches away from hers.
“It’s definitely a blessing,” I say before I pull my mask down for the briefest second while I press my lips to hers. I pull the mask back over my mouth just as the surgeon speaks up. “Ava, how are you feeling back there? You okay?”
She inhales a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Just relax. In a few minutes you’ll get to meet your baby. How does that sound?” the surgeon asks and I find myself smiling at her question.
“Amazing …” Ava says in a dream-like sigh, smiling at me with the anticipation of what’s to come.
“Can you feel this, Ava?” the surgeon checks moments later, and without seeing what they’re doing I know that they’re pressing into her incision area with surgical scissors to see if she can feel anything.
“No.”
“What about this?”
“No,” Ava says with a shake of her head.
“Can you feel this?” The surgeon asks a few more times with Ava responding with a ‘no’ every time.
The surgery begins and my heart begins to thud inside my chest as a mixture of excitement and nerves begin to soar through my veins. I can’t believe this is finally happening … after all of the months of worry and the possible worst outcomes that terrified us to death, we’re finally meeting our daughter. She might need a couple of days in hospital to monitor her breathing and development, but it’s better than the outcome of what could have happened if she was born weeks earlier. I’m a neonatologist; I know what can happen and how life threatening a child’s life can be if they’re not fully developed. I’ve also seen firsthand what happens to a parent when they watch their baby who’s no more than twenty-five weeks take their last breath. It takes a little bit of their soul away and it’s fucking heartbreaking.