“They had to revive you on the table,” I said.
I opened my eyes and saw fear coursing through her stare. I wrapped my arm around her neck and felt her beginning to sob into my shoulder. This wasn’t the labor either of us had intended to be a part of, but she was alive and that was all I cared about. We could get through anything else. Everything else. So long as she was standing next to me.
She released every emotion she’d been experiencing for the past few months. Every piece of anger, every moment of sorrow, and every event of fear. The
doctor gathered my sons off her bouncing bosom and placed them into their bassinets and I held Emma as closely as I could get her. I felt her breasts leaking onto my shirt. Her heart slamming against my chest. Her tears soaking my shoulder.
“I’ve got you,” I said as I stroked her hair. “I’ve got you, Emma.”
The first night with the boys was rough. All they did was cry and Emma hardly got any sleep. Relief coursed through my veins, however, then I heard the kids running down the hallway. Hearing Zoey yell for her mommy and hearing Benjamin and Hunter rattle off about the infants, it warmed my heart. Them and the nanny came around the corner with bags for our stay, and she immediately dropped them and went to massage Emma’s feet.
“Look who’s here,” I said as Emma opened her eyes.
I warned the kids to be gentle as the slowly climbed up into her lap. Emma sat up in the hospital bed and they all hugged her, kissing her face as she wrapped them up in her arms. There was no need to tell them what had happened. All that mattered was that everyone was alive and well. Zoey’s eyes kept peeking over to the bassinets, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“They look wrinkly,” she said.
“They’ve been floating in water for eight months. I think you’d be wrinkly, too, if you were floating in water that long,” Emma said.
“Can we see them?” Benjamin asked.
“How about I do you one better. Would you like to hold them?”
“Yeah,” Hunter said with a smile. “Can we?”
Emma cradled them in their arms as I placed one of our sons into the arms of my other children. Benjamin was so soft and Hunter was so protective. Zoey was in awe, cooing and gasping every time the infant moved. I sat to the side, cradling Zoey against me so she could better support her baby brother in her arms.
“What’s his name?” Zoey asked.
I looked up at Emma and watched as a smile crossed her face. In all of the worry and the hustling that had happened bringing these little guys into the world, we hadn’t stopped to consider their names.
But Emma looked like she already knew them.
“Zoey, you’re holding ‘Zachariah’,” Emma said.
“Zachariah,” Zoey said with a whisper.
“Benjamin, you’re holding Brent,” Emma said.
“Hey, his name starts like mine!” he said.
“Who am I holding?” Hunter asked.
Emma smiled broadly at the boy in her lap before her eyes fell to our third son. The last one to come out of her body.
“You’re holding ‘Harrison’,” Emma said.
Zachariah, Brent, and Harrison.
Somehow, those names all seemed to fit.
I looked at the scene unfolding in front of me and my heart swelled with joy. Emma, whose skin was already regaining a bit of color, had three children sitting between her legs. They all leaned against her, cradling our newborn triplets in each of their arms.
The love of my life.
The mother of my children.
My soon-to-be bride.