New Found Love

Three days later, Amber woke up to an empty bed. She’d been discharged from the hospital two days earlier, when Tre had arrived from Europe to see their newborn son and daughter. They still had no idea what they were going to name them, but they were working on ideas. For the most part, their entire lives for the past three days had been devoted to spending time between two things. One was the newborns’ nursery, which was still incomplete and two, their eldest daughter Sarah. They wanted to give her enough attention at home before her life was changed when they would bring her brother and sister home from the hospital, which was supposedly going to be in six to eight weeks. Both babies needed to remain in the special incubators that would mimic the environment of their mother’s womb to promote healthy lung growth. So that required the six to eight week stay in the hospital. It sucked, but it was what it was. Amber and Tre just had to learn to live with it.

Amber carefully rolled herself out of bed. She was having a hard time adjusting to caring for her c-section scar, which was a good 7 inches across her bikini line. Her stitches would come out in 10 days, and after that, she’d be put on a cream that would promote skin cell growth to make the scar fade away. She absolutely hated the c-section scar. It drove her insane to have to look at it every single day in the shower. But, she’d have to get used to it and in within a year or two’s time, her scar would fade.

“Tre?” she called out, wondering where her husband was.

“Yeah honey?” he asked, coming back into their room.

“Where were you?”

“In the nursery. I’m making sure that there’s enough room for the cribs and changing tables.”

“Oh, okay,” Amber said, walking into their bathroom.

“Do you want me to come with you to the hospital?” he asked.

“Sure,” Amber said.

“Do you want me to feed Sarah?” he asked.

“Sure,” Amber said again.

Tre sighed. Amber hadn’t been in the happiest of moods since her emergency c-section. She’d become more distant and depressed. She often held her empty pregnant tummy, or what was left of it, remembering what it was like to be pregnant, knowing that if things had gone they way they should have, she’d still be pregnant and carrying her twins to term. She spent her days worrying about her children. Hoping that her nameless son and daughter would make it through to the next day while hoping that she’d given enough of her time to her precious eighteen-month-old at home. All Amber could do was hope.

Tre felt disgusted with himself that he had to be away on tour when all of this shit happened with his wife at home. He’d do anything to take back what had happened to Amber and their children. He never imagined that something like this would take place while he was halfway across the world. He hated seeing his family like this. He hated seeing his wife being so down on herself over something that she couldn’t control. He hated seeing his daughter wondering what was wrong with her mother. He hated seeing his two infant children in their incubators at the hospital, with tubes down their throats and noses, giving them the nutrients they needed to survive. But what he hated the most was that in just two days’ time, he’d be away from home again. That thought sickened him the most. He wished that he could just walk away from the tour, but he knew he couldn’t. He knew Amber would get through this, that they both would. He’d fly back periodically to check up on them and make sure that all was well. He’d do anything he could to accomplish both his tour and his problems at home.

“Sarah bear!” Tre bellowed out as he opened his daughter’s room. Sarah stood waiting for him in her crib. She smiled and waved to her father. When he scooped her up into his arms, she giggled and squealed.

Tre tried hard every day to make his daughter’s life as normal as possible. He woke her up every day and changed her and fed her before dropping her off at the day care center so he could take Amber up to the hospital to feed their children. He knew it was tough on Sarah, but he also knew that she probably wouldn’t remember this time in her life when she was older. She’d only know of the twins as her brother and sister whom she loved and played with, not as her brother and sister who robbed her of months of her baby youth.

“Daddy!” Sarah giggled as Tre kissed her toes. “Stop!” she giggled. Tre stopped and helped her into a sundress and then brought her downstairs to eat her breakfast.

Amber stood in the shower, washing her hair as the water hit her back. She was exhausted. Her schedule nowadays had been filled with stuff to do for her children. She was required to feed her babies every three to four hours every day and that meant going in at night to feed them too. She’d taken a leave of absence from her work to recover from her ordeal and to take care of her family. She spent every waking minute concerned about one thing or another and it was starting to take its toll on her.

Amber got out of the shower and changed into comfortable clothes. She picked her purse up off the floor and walked downstairs. She walked to her daughter’s high chair and gave her a big kiss on the cheek.

“Morning baby girl,” Amber said, kissing her daughter again. She fed Sarah the last of her cheerios before picking her up and holding her in her arms.

“Feeling any better?” Tre asked, looking out the window above their sink.

“A little bit,” Amber said, standing next to him. She pulled a banana from the fruit basket and unpeeled it. She fed the top part to Sarah before eating the rest of it.

“Are you almost ready to go?” he asked.

“Yup,” Amber said, throwing away the banana peel.

“Let’s go then,” Tre said, jingling his keys.

After dropping Sarah off at the daycare center, they made their way up to the Children’s Hospital so Amber could pump milk for their infant children. Once they were there, they scrubbed into the NICU and soon found themselves sitting in rocking chairs while Amber pumped milk.

“I’ve thought of a name for our son,” Tre said. Tre was standing by their son’s incubator. He had his finger in the palm of his son’s tiny hand.

“What is it?” Amber asked softly.

“Aidan,” he said.

“That’s pretty,” she said.

“You like it?” Tre asked, turning himself slightly so he could see his wife.

“Yeah, I do. It matches the name I want to name our daughter,” she said.

“Yeah, what’s that?” Tre asked.

“Abigail,” Amber said.

“Abigail,” Tre repeated.

“Aidan and Abigail,” Amber said.

“A & A,” Tre said. Amber laughed.

“A & A,” Amber repeated.

“So that’s it then? Aidan for the boy and Abigail for the girl?” he asked.

“If that’s what we agree on?”

“It is,” Tre said.

“Fine by me,” Amber said.

“So we have names for the twins!” the nearby nurse asked.

“We do!” Tre told her with a smile, pulling his hand out of Aidan’s incubator.

“Aidan for the boy?” the nurse asked. “Will he have a middle name?”

Amber and Tre looked at each other.

“James?” Amber asked.

“Aidan James,” Tre said aloud. “AJ. Hey, I like it!”

“Okay, Aidan James,” the nurse said. “Is that it?”

“Yes,” Amber and Tre said in unison.

“Now, Abigail, what will her middle name be?” the nurse asked.

“Abigail Joy?” Tre asked.

“We can’t have two AJs!” Amber said.

“Why not? It’s unique!” Tre said.

“It’ll be weird!” Amber protested. “Abigail McKenzie?”

“Nope. Abigail Elizabeth?” Tre asked.

“I like it,” Amber said. “Abigail Elizabeth.”

“Abigail Elizabeth?” the nurse asked.

“Yup,” Amber and Tre said in unison.

“That’s it then. They’re named!” Tre said happily.

“One less thing we need to worry about,” Amber said, setting the pumping equipment aside. The nurse took the milk and prepped it to be fed to Aidan and Abigail.

“Thank god,” Tre said.

Amber and Tre spent a few more minutes with Aidan and Abigail before leaving to go to the store to buy more supplied for the nursery. They stopped at the Babies R Us to pick up some more clothing and preemie diapers.

“Ooh!” Tre exclaimed, pointing to the double stroller on the wall. “We need that, babe!”

“Really?” Amber asked, looking up at it. “It’s six hundred dollars.”

“I don’t care. We only have a single stroller, now we need a double,” Tre said.

“No, we’d need a triple. Sarah’s still pretty young. She can’t walk through a store on her own yet,” Amber said. “There, that one!” Amber said, pointing o the triple stroller near the one Tre had already pointed to. “It’s not that much more expensive.”

“All right,” Tre said. He pulled the stroller out of its position and began walking next to Amber while pushing it. “We’re a team!” he joked.

Amber laughed.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Car seats, we can’t take them home without them,” she said.

“Well, we already have one from when Sarah was born, so we only need another,” Tre said.

“Yup,” Amber agreed. Together, they selected the same model they’d already owned and put it under the cart Amber was pushing.

“Next?” Tre asked.

“Pacifiers and shit,” Amber told him.

“Love how you utilized the word shit in that sentence my dear,” Tre said. Amber chuckled. “On it!”

“Great, I’ll grab another box of diapers,” Amber said.

Before long, they had both the cart and the triple stroller filled with supplies they’d need for their children. Amber picked out a few outfits for Sarah as well as plenty of socks and onesies for the twins. Tre had also found Sarah a few toys in the toy department for her to play with. Amber and Tre checked out of the store and made one more trip up to the hospital so Amber could feed the babies before they went back to pick up Sarah.

“Oh! Home sweet home!” Amber sighed as she walked into the living room with Sarah on her hip. She set Sarah down in her playpen before sitting down on the couch and watching TV. Tre sat down next to her and sighed.

“You know, there’s a car load of crap we need to get up to the nursery,” he said.

“Yeah, can you get on that?” Amber asked, running a hand through her hair. Tre scoffed.

“No! I need your help!” he protested.

“Tre, I’ve pumped milk three times already today. I went shopping for the babies and now I have to think about cooking dinner. Can you please help me out for a second? I know you’re tired, but I’m exhausted!” Amber complained.

Tre kissed his wife’s lips in defeat.

“Thank you,” Amber told him.

Tre got up to unload the car after a few minutes of relaxing on the couch with his wife. Amber sighed and got up to go into the kitchen to prepare dinner. She’d decided to make a delicious baked chicken with a green salad on the side. After laboring around in the kitchen for hours, it was time to make one more trip up to the hospital to feed her twins. She sighed as she drove away from home on her way up to the hospital. She knew that her life was forever changed for the better, even though right now, it seemed like it had changed for the worst. But, in just a few weeks time, her babies would be home and her life as a mom would truly begin.