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“I don’t know if you know yet, Mr. and Mrs. Templeton,” The doctor says with an air of seriousness.
“But I only hope your new home has room for three… or maybe even four,” he adds, unable to contain his own excitement.
“You mean…” Noah asks, his jaw falling open.
The doctor nods excitedly, but Noah’s eyes are on mine.
I can only gasp, running my hands over my own belly, tracing the lines from the ultrasound.
“Here, Faith. Look here,” the nurse says calmly and firmly, taking one of my hands in hers, the other letting me hold the paddle while she moves it so we can all see what the whole fuss has been about.
It all makes perfect sense in that one moment.
“Looking over your other test results, Faith. I’m pleased to tell you that the only thing wrong with you is nothing wrong at all,” The doctor announces.
“You’re both going to be proud parents of… Oh! Do we want to know the sex or even how many?” he asks, stopping himself.
“I think we can have our first family portraits,” Noah murmurs, raising his brow in question.
Me? I can’t wait to know, and once I see them both, up close and how they’re so tiny and delicate but so strong, I feel a new kind of magic.
When two souls join as one, Noah and me. And the souls they bring into the world because of that union.
“They’re just so beautiful!” I whisper, feeling Noah’s hand over mine as he helps me guide the ultrasound probe over my whole belly, almost like he has to chase them already.
“They’re perfectly healthy, maybe just some stress from the move and from flying brought on some delayed illness once they started to wriggle around,” The doctor says, beaming with as much pride as we both have, watching our babies.
“We’d like to keep you in, just overnight, Mrs. Templeton. Then tomorrow, I can refer you to a very good midwife on the North Island, the best,” he adds.
“The best?” Noah asks, not meaning to sound doubtful.
“She should be,” he adds. “She’s my daughter!” he exclaims, stopping in the middle of our shared joy just long enough to glance at his beeper.
“I have to go now, but congratulations you two… err, three, or is it four?” he says with another smile, placing his hands over both of ours before disappearing again.
Noah and I stare in wonder at our babies, and the nurse lets us hear their heartbeats too,
“Strong, and powerful,” is her diagnosis.
“They say babies conceived in moments of pure passion and love are always the strongest,” she adds.
“You didn’t know you were pregnant, all this time?” she asks, dumbfounded.
Noah answers for us both.
For all four of us.
“There’s so much passion in our life, I’m not surprised these two crept in without us even noticing,” he says proudly, kissing me on the lips and pressing his hand over mine firmly.
“Mommy Templeton,” he whispers in my ear, teasing me a little before kissing it.
“Daddy Templeton,” I tease him back, feeling the tear from his cheek running onto mine as the nurse leaves us alone to be together as we celebrate the news of our instant and unexpected family.Extended EpilogueTwo Years LaterNoah“Of course I won’t go, honey, not if you don’t want me to,” I tell Faith.
Helping one of the twins from her hip, I kiss them both, telling her I’ll change Zak and then put him down with Zoe if only she’ll just relax.
Faith groans, following me through to the changing table, gnawing her lip like she used to. The surest sign she’s not sure about something.
“I mean, I just don’t want you feeling like you have to go,” she says finally.
I murmur an answer, but with the large diaper pin between my teeth.
“What?” she calls over her shoulder, pretending to fold some baby clothes.
The eternal supply of onesies.
“I said, I haven’t seen you this touchy since-” But I lower my own voice suddenly.
“Could it be?” I ask baby Zak, holding his tiny puckered fist in my fingers as I draw it gently to my lips, moving his whole arm as he gurgles and finally giggles.
A look of complete satisfaction as I know it from him, then smell him filling his entire diaper I just changed. In record time too, or so I thought.
“You wanna see me some more before you go to sleep, don’t you little man?” I ask him, bending down to kiss him as I reach for a fresh diaper.
“What are you feeding Zak, honey?” I ask her, half-joking, half-serious. Totally trying to change the subject.
I know she doesn’t want me to go, we’ve been together, here at home with our babies for two years in July.
Her Dad hasn’t come to visit since we left the states and I’ve volunteered to fly him over myself, picking him up from Hawaii, the beach house we bought there.
