Ride with Me (19 page)

Four weeks of visiting the hospital daily. Living at home, I feel that burning ache of not having my babies with me. Cooper can feel it, too. He asks all the time when they are coming home.

We took him a few times to the hospital and let him see through the glass, but he doesn’t understand why I can go in and hold the babies, but he can’t. I tried to explain the germs, but he didn’t want to listen to any of it. I can’t blame him. I didn’t want to listen to why my babies weren’t here, either.

During the time I have been home and my babies there, they have had some achievements and several setbacks. Each setback—heart and lung development, jaundice, feeding issues—Cruz has been at my side. Actually, everyone has been at our sides: Ma, Pops, GT, Casey—everyone. I fully admit I haven’t been myself. I have been taking this shit hard. I just can’t help it. Coop running around, being the active boy he is, helps a lot.

It’s been almost more than I can bare, but yesterday at our visit, Cruz and I got the best news ever. Today, we get to bring our babies home. They are technically thirty-six weeks, but they are breathing on their own, feeding from a bottle regularly, and every test the doctors have run has come back with the results they were looking for.

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that we are finally bringing our family home! Of course, I won’t be fully relieved until we get the babies in the car and bring them home.

As we walk to the NICU, Cruz carries the two car seats, and I’m scared to death. I’m terrified we are going to get there, and they are going to tell us that something happened and that we won’t be able to take our babies home. That fear is something I can’t get rid of. It’s also something that is killing me a little inside.

We enter the room and heads turn to us. As they see who it is, smiles lift their faces, and a small bit of relief hits me. They aren’t looking at me with gloom faces, so that’s a start.

A nurse named Cindy comes up. “You’re here!” She’s the head of the NICU, and we have gotten to know her pretty well over the last four weeks. She’s good, and I’m happy my babies had her when they couldn’t have me.

“Hi,” I greet her, waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting for her to tell me that Austyn and Lennox have to stay. They can’t, just can’t. My heart can’t take it.

“Today’s the day these two beauties get out!” She’s excited, but there’s a small bit of despair there, too. “I’m gonna miss these two,” she says softly. Again, I’m so grateful my kids had someone like her. She’s totally in the fold and doesn’t even know it yet.

Weight is lifted from my shoulders as I feel the relief. My babies are coming home! They are really coming home with me. Holy shit! Excitement like no other bubbles in me as I turn to Cruz, seeing the smile on his face.

“I know, babe,” he says.

Fuck it. I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him. My poor man has been through the ringer with this, being my rock when I didn’t have the strength for it. He’s absolutely amazing.

I move to the little cribs. Our babies no longer need the little cubes to keep them warm.

Both Austyn and Lennox are still small. I’m sure the newborn clothes will be worn for a while, but they are so much bigger than when we first saw them. They have more meat on their bones.

As their eyes meet mine, they start making noises and cooing. It warms my heart that they know me. I think that was one of the things I struggled with the most. I was so damn afraid that since I wasn’t there around the clock with them, they wouldn’t realize I am their mom. That was too much to bear. Nevertheless, they know their momma, and the happiness I feel from that makes every single second since the moment they were born worth it. That they are healthy now makes it all worth it.

“Let’s get you guys home.”

***

“I wanna hold ’em.” Cooper bounces up and down on his heels as we carry the babies inside the house. Ma stands next to the couch, a tear shimmering in her eye.

I feel the excitement. My babies are home, all three of them.

“Hang on, buddy. You need to wash your hands.” The nurses said to be careful around others and to make sure that if someone holds them, they wash their hands. If that’s what needs to be done, then that’s what we will do.

Coop looks at me with a “
seriously”
look, one of the looks his father gives me all the time.

“Yes,” I tell him before he runs off to wash.

I carefully unhook the contraption holding Austyn safely in her seat. She’s asleep and so damn tiny. I pull her out and wrap her in a blanket just as Cooper barrels down the hallway.

“I’m done!”

“Sit on the couch, little man,” Cruz says, walking over and putting a pillow under Coop’s arm. “Now you can’t move once you have Austyn.”

“I knows. Gamma telled me.” His little, excited face makes my heart almost burst.

I place my little girl in his arms, and Coop’s face lights up. Yeah, he’s going to be a great big brother.

“Austyn, you can’t put that in your mouth.”

Drool falls from her lips as she chews on one of my shoes. The kid is rolling like crazy and faster than I can get everything picked up.

I take the shoe away and give her a small giraffe toy that instantly goes in her mouth.

Lennox lies on the carpet, looking up at the ceiling fan, his feet lifted to his mouth, otherwise content. He just started rolling to his side, but nothing like Austyn. I, of course, was concerned and asked their pediatrician.

She put me at ease quickly about the different stages of development and the fact that their being born early may slow their development in some areas. For the most part, they are hitting the marks as expected. They’re sometimes on the low end of the spectrum, but they are there.

My thing is that they are happy. Coop, on the other hand, is getting to his happy place. He’s not too keen on one of the twins finding a toy of his and chewing on it, but he’s coming around slowly, but surely.

“Babe, I’ve got Coop ready.” Cruz comes in, picking Austyn up off the floor and blowing on her belly, making little giggly sounds come from her. “I’ll get this little lady together. You get Lennox.”

Today is their first appearance at the clubhouse. We have been waiting until their immune systems are stronger because I will fully admit I’m paranoid when it comes to the kids going back into the hospital. I know they are going to get sick, but with how fragile they were when we brought them home, I have done everything in my power to make sure they don’t get germs.

Listen to me. I have turned into one of
those
moms, but I don’t give a flying shit.

I pick Lennox up and get him ready.

Cruz carries both the car seats into the clubhouse with me holding Cooper’s hand. The cheers fill the space, and for once, I notice the potent smell of smoke isn’t as strong. It’s not clouding the clubhouse.

I turn to Ma who smiles. She must have gotten Pops to put a halt on it while we are here. Damn, I love her. I never cared about the smell before, but my babies had underdeveloped lungs and had to fight to breathe.

Cooper runs off with Deke as Austyn and Lennox are passed from person to person. As I watch my family with my babies, I feel it. Finally, after all these months of being terrified, I feel the relief fall over me. I feel the weight release from my shoulders.

I move over to Cruz and wrap my arms around his waist, his arms coming around me. This has been one of the most trying times a couple could face, and we stuck by each other.

“I love you,” I say to his chest, and his hands tighten around me.

“I fucking love you more than words can say. You gave me beautiful babies, took Coop on as your own, and love me without question. No fucking man could get it any better.”

I squeeze more tightly. “I’ve never been happier.”

His lips come to the top of my head, and a sense of peace comes over me. I love this man, love my kids, love my family. This is what true happiness is. I have it, and I will fight to the death to keep every drop of it.

USA Today bestselling author Chelsea Camaron is a small town Carolina girl with a big imagination. She is a wife and mom chasing her dreams. She writes contemporary romance, erotic suspense, and psychological thrillers. She loves to write blue collar men who have real problems with a fictional twist. From mechanics to bikers to oil riggers to smokejumpers, bar owners, and beyond, she loves a strong hero who works hard and plays harder.

Chelsea can be found on social media at:

www.facebook.com/authorchelseacamaron

Twitter @chelseacamaron

Email:
[email protected]

Ryan Michele has a huge obsession with reading, which only came to life after her best friend said she had to read Twilight. After reading that series, her entire world changed in the blink of an eye. Not only was she sucked into new worlds and all of the wonderful words authors put down on paper, she felt the urge to begin to write down the characters that played inside of her head.

When she’s not reading or writing, she spends time taking care of her two children and her husband, enjoying the outdoors and laying in the sun.

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