Look After Us (19 page)

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.

Today was always a long shot; we had no idea how long this pregnancy would last, but I have to thank my lucky stars that we got to this stage. I like to think my brother and Ava’s dad have something to do with it; looking down on us, protecting us, but since my emotions are already causing my lungs to burn with its intensity at the prospect of finally meeting my daughter, I put that thought to the very back of my mind. I can only take so much emotion on a day like today without bringing up ghosts as well.

I keep my eyes on Ava, allowing her sweet browns to get lost in my dazzling green eyes she loves so much—her words not mine—in a bid to take her mind off the brutality the surgeons are currently inflicting on her. I find myself tightening my grip against Ava’s hand when she winces a few times at the heavy pressure I can imagine she’s feeling as they force our daughter out of her womb, and I know it’s only seconds until we finally get to see our daughter in the flesh. The moment Ava’s contorted face smoothes out, both surgeons cheer through laughter along with the other medical staff.

“Oh wow, you’ve sure got yourselves a beautiful baby girl,” one surgeon says before a lungful of crying can be heard. My heart skips a beat when we get a brief glimpse of our blood-covered daughter over the screen before she’s taken away to get cleaned up.

But wow, she’s so fucking beautiful, even covered with vernix and blood.

Ava’s lip trembles just as my eyes begin to blur with happy, emotional tears. “We have a baby girl?” Ava questions with amazement, even though we’ve known the sex of our baby since her eighteen-week ultrasound at the emergency appointment.

“Yeah, we have a baby girl,” I choke through thick emotion.

Laughter bubbles from the back of her throat and it quickly turns into a high-pitched sob. I can’t help but cry along with her as we take in the pure magnitude of this moment. The moment that is sure to be the third greatest moment of my life.

The first was when I stumbled across the beautiful brunette mother who was in front of her daughter’s incubator, the daughter who I’d been closely observing.

The second was the moment that beautiful brunette mother agreed to marry me in an impromptu ceremony at my brother’s wedding, then two months later married me again with Lily-Mai in my arms on a hot exotic beach, where Ava officially became Mrs. Ava Bailey.

And the third is now … the moment a nurse lays our baby in my arms and I find myself falling in love again, only this time it’s my daughter who I’m madly in love with. She’s beautiful and looks just like her mom.

I edge even closer to Ava so she can get a good look at her daughter. I gently caress my baby girl’s hat-covered head with my fingertips as her puffy dark blue eyes roam over my face, blinking heavily every few seconds.

“She’s perfect,” Ava says with an exhaled sob and I can only agree, because she really is …
she’s incredibly perfect
.

“She really is,” I repeat my thoughts out loud, and my vocal chords at this point become strained with heavy emotion and I hardly recognize my own voice. After gazing at my daughter without so much as blinking for two minutes straight, and I’ve memorized her cute button nose, full lips and soft wrinkled skin, I finally look at Ava and our tear-streaked eyes meet each other’s.

“You did good, baby … so fucking good.” Tears continue to fall from her glistening eyes and she gives me a breathtaking smile through a stammering cry.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she replies as her eyes briefly take in her daughter who is now wriggling in my arms as a screech-filled cry escapes her tiny little mouth.

I adjust her slightly in my arms and smile down at her. “It’s okay, baby girl …” I hush softly, kissing the top of her head. I inhale the heavenly smell that all newborn babies are born with and I watch as Ava’s eyes roam over every inch of our daughter’s beautiful face.

“She has blue eyes … which tells me she’ll probably have the same green eyes as you.”

“You think?” I ask with a smile.

“I hope so … they’re my favorite shade of green.” My smile grows and I fall in love with her all over again. Hell, if I could marry her again I would … in fact, maybe I will; after all, I did promise she could have as many weddings as she wanted.

“So what name are we going to go with?” I ask after a few long moments of staring contently at our beautiful creation. After months of trying to come up with a name, two days ago we finally had it narrowed down to two, but Ava didn’t want to decide until we got our first glimpse of her. Ava looks at me and with a huge smile plastered on her face, I know exactly the name that goes perfectly with our daughter because the very second I saw her I knew it in an instant. And it’s a wonderful tribute to Ava’s late sister.

“Francesca,” Ava says softly as her eyes glisten and spill with even more tears. And with that, I remove my mask and gently press another kiss against Francesca’s head before pressing a kiss to Ava’s mouth, lingering there for a few long moments. I pull away with a smile. “I love you so much. Not only do I have you and Lily, I now have Francesca and it’s more than any man could have ever dreamed for.” I look at my daughter and chuckle under my breath. “But damn, baby … I’m officially screwed. I’m up against three chicks now … that’s a lot of pink.”

Ava gently laughs and she shakes her head with amusement.