Turning back, I took another step closer. Tears instantly filled my eyes. Her little chest was moving up and down and she had tubes and wires coming out from all over her.
I felt weak, but Trevor held me up, a gentle touch around my waist. Kacy was at my other side.
“She’s the best baby in here. Doesn’t give me any trouble at all!”
Laughing, I replied, “She must take after me then.”
Trevor chuckled. “Um, excuse me, I’m not the one who set the trash can on fire next to the courthouse.”
“Well, I see getting to know you two is going to be fun,” Kacy said.
My eyes scanned my baby’s entire body as I took her in. Kacy proceeded to tell me about everything that was hooked up to the baby.
“Dr. Jackson, the neonatologist, will be by here shortly. I’m sure you’ll have questions for her, please don’t hesitate to ask them.”
“How long do you think she’ll need the breathing tube?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. The doctor will take a good look at her, listen to her lungs again and she’ll make the decision when she feels like baby Parker will be able to at least move to a nose prong. We need to watch for apnea. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.”
“The feeding tube is just until she learns to suck?” I asked.
“Yes. Each time we take her out, she’ll be worked with on different things. Sucking is one of those. The occupational therapists will be working with her as well on those types of things. We’ll slowly introduce her to your milk, so that her digestive system gets used to it. I’ve already explained to Trevor what we are giving her, I’m more than happy to explain it to you as well.”
“No, that’s okay. I read up on it. TPN right?”
Kacy smiled. “You are absolutely right.”
I was scared to ask the next question. “When can I hold her?”
“How about right now?”
Tears filled my eyes again, but this time I kept them back.
“Yes!”
“Trevor, why don’t you help Mom into the rocking chair while I get baby Parker ready.”
It felt like it took me forever to get into the chair, but when I finally did, I looked up to see Kacy holding the tiniest baby I’d ever seen in my life.
“Let’s pull that gown open so that she can be up against your chest without any barriers, Mom.”
The moment the baby was placed in my arms, I felt the most powerful surge of love. I feared it wasn’t going to happen, but I felt the love flowing instantly between us.
Tears of happiness streamed down my face as I stared at her.
“Hey, beautiful girl. Sorry it took me so long to get here. You sort of took us by surprise.”
Trevor was right next to me, taking a video on his phone. “Everyone is dying to see…”
He paused and looked into my eyes.
“What’s her name, Scarlett? Do you know?”
I nodded. “Do you?”
He nodded and said, “Let’s say it on three.”
I grinned.
“What if we each say a different name?” I asked.
Trevor glanced at Kacy. “Then Kacy gets to pick.”
Her smile faded. “What? No way.”
“On three?” I asked, gazing back down at the baby.
Trevor cleared his throat and quietly counted. “One. Two. Three.”
“Aurora.”
We had both said the same name. Trevor looked relieved, and I felt like I was going to burst with happiness. I was still scared. For a million different reasons. Our daughter was in the NICU, she couldn’t breathe on her own, and the future wasn’t really known. But in that moment, with our daughter named, with the possibility of a beautiful future, I was happy. Happier than I’d ever been in my entire life.
Walking slowly into the NICU, I focused on Aurora’s incubator and tried to tune all the other activity out. The first two days of her life I’d suffered from anxiety and broken down more than what I thought was normal. Trevor never left my side.
Cord and Maebh had come to see me and brought us clothes and essentials. They were the second group of people to see Aurora. Trevor’s parents were the first grandparents to see her. Mine had been too worried they would make the baby sick and refused.
I was being discharged from the hospital and Trevor had rented a condo only a block away. He said there was no way we were going to be more than five minutes from Aurora.
I smiled when I got to the incubator. She wasn’t in it. Instead, she was sleeping peacefully against her daddy’s bare chest. She looked so incredibly small against Trevor’s giant body. His large muscles nearly swallowed her whole. When he took his shirt off he got stares, not only from some of the nurses…I caught a mom peeking over once or twice.
Trevor and Aurora were both sleeping, and I couldn’t help but stare at the two people I loved more than anything in this world. In the last two days Aurora had come a long way. She was now on a nasal cannula, and Dr. Jackson felt like she would be breathing without it any day. The PICC line was delivering her nutrients and medicine, if needed. The plan was for me to keep pumping breast milk for when Aurora was ready to receive it. Dr. Jackson said he hoped to be able to deliver that through a nasogastric tube soon.