Page 152 of Call You Mine
He’shere.
My body is shaking uncontrollably, and I feel cold and warm at the same time, but I find the strength, buried deep inside of me, to stay present, here in the moment, for the birth of our daughter.
“Okay, here she comes,” one of the doctors says just as the anesthesiologist begins to pull down the curtain hanging at my chest.
“Oh my god,” Anderson says, tears falling down instreams, soaking the top of the mask he’s wearing, and I turn my head just in time to see the doctor holding up the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. “You did it, love. You did it.”
I cry in a way I never have before, love so fierce overwhelming me as the doctor hands my daughter off to the nurses. One of them calls Anderson over, and he looks down at me, torment in his eyes, like he’s being pulled in two separate directions.
“Go,” I whisper through the tears. “She needs her Daddy.”
Anderson leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead through his mask, just as we hear a cry.
The next few minutes happen in a blur—I stare up at the ceiling, feeling like my mind and body are on separate planes.
“There’s your Mommy,” I hear Anderson say, his voice cutting through the fog building around me.
I open my eyes, not even realizing they were closed, and Anderson holds our daughter, wrapped in a white blanket with blue and pink stripes, her little head covered with a pink hat. Her little hands are closed in fits, held close to her chest, her eyes closed as she makes little cries.
I’ve never seen something more terrifyingly beautiful.
Anderson lowers our daughter to my chest, holding her steady, and I know I will look back at this moment as the one that changed me forever.
The moment that completely rewired my brain, my soul, my entire being.
CHAPTER 57
ANDERSON
Nothingand no one can prepare you for the moment you watch the woman you love hold your daughter.
I thought I knew what real love was.
But it’s nothing in comparison to the love I feel as I watch Ava hold our daughter in her arms while Georgie sits next to her in her hospital bed, laying her head on Ava’s shoulder.
Their gazes are both stuck on the baby, but I can’t help but watch them all, my heart growing in size to adjust to the love blooming in my chest.
After the C-section, Ava and the baby were wheeled back to our Labor and Delivery Room before we were moved to the postpartum wing of the hospital. Georgie was with Rumi, Emerson, and Jack in the waiting room, but I went to get her once we were settled in our new room.
There are vases of flowers balanced on the windowsill with cards of congratulations from both Phoebe and Jasmine, and a teddy bear with a card from Patricia who has kept contact with Ava, even after the adoption was finalized.
All of the baby’s vitals are normal, and she isn’t showing signs of distress anymore since her delivery. The doctors said the distress could have been from how strong and longAva’s contractions were, and I know I will never forgive myself for not being here for Ava and barely making it just in time.
By the time I made it up to her room, Rumi was the only one in there with one of the nurses, getting gowned and masked to join Ava in the operating room.
If I were even a minute later, I would’ve missed my chance—missed my daughter being born.
And even though it meant the world to me that Rumi was willing to take my place, I’m grateful that she didn’t have to.
A soft knock sounds at the door. “Can we come in?” a quiet voice asks, revealing Rumi, followed by Jack and Emerson as they slowly push the door open.
“Come in,” Ava says. She looks exhausted, but in a way that makes her somehow even more beautiful. There’s a calmness to her, a sense of relief in her features, that has her free of any tension as she holds our daughter.
Georgie stands up from the hospital bed as Rumi and Emerson meet Baby Montgomery for the first time. Jack stays back, standing just behind Rumi, but I see the slight curve of his lips and the tear in the corner of his eye that he quickly wipes away with the pad of his finger.
“She’s so beautiful,” Rumi says, her hands coming to her mouth.
“Cutest newborn I’ve ever seen,” Emerson adds, a small smile on her face.
