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Maybe it was because for the first time since we’d set out on this endeavor, we weren’t fucking. We were making love.
Chapter Fifteen
Scarlett
Seven months later
I’d read so many stories about giving birth by the time it was my turn; my head was full of information that didn’t help at all. Other women’s stories, learning what they had gone through, hadn’t prepared me at all.
Labor was brutal. I endured eighteen hours of it before baby number one decided to make an appearance. And let me tell you, squeezing a baby out of your lady bits was no joke. Even if the babies were slightly smaller because there were three of them inside me.
I was on the bed, grasping sheets and Evan’s hand, my legs open wide with doctors assisting in getting the children out. All sense of embarrassment had left the room a long time ago. I just wanted this over and done with.
“Just one more push,” Monroe said. She had been great all the way through, but at this moment, I hated her. I did as she asked and felt the relief of the first child leaving my body. A moment later, the strangled cry of a newborn filled the room. I lifted my head, trying to see.
“We’re ready for the second one,” Monroe said. I groaned. This wasn’t over, yet.
I went through the process again, pushing when Monroe asked me to, waiting when she told me to take a breather. It felt like it took forever. Finally, baby number two was out. I heard the cry, and the sound triggered my maternal instinct.
“One more time, honey,” Evan said next to me. I must have cut off the circulation to his hand with how hard I was squeezing, but he didn’t complain once.
I went through the process a third time, and finally, the babies were born. They took the children to the station behind Dr. Monroe to weigh and measure them while Dr. Monroe helped me take care of the afterbirth. When it was all over, she smiled.
“Congratulations, you two,” she said with a big grin. “Two healthy baby girls, and a baby boy.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. Evan hugged and kissed me, and he looked like he was going to cry, too. But he bit back the emotions. A man like Evan didn’t cry. A man like Evan was bigger than anything that came his way. But God, he was damn close to breaking that wall down and being a blubbering mess, just like me.
They cleaned me up, unhitched my legs from the stirrups that held them open, and pulled a blanket over my legs. They brought our babies to us. It was hard holding all three of them. Evan held the little boy. A moment later, Lily came in.
She looked emotional, too. “Let me help,” she said. “It looks like you need an extra pair of arms.”
I laughed and nodded, handing her one of the babies.
“Oh, my God, Scar, they’re beautiful,” Lily said, looking down at them.
They really were beautiful. I looked at Evan who was beaming down at the boy he was holding. He had wanted a son from the start, and now, his dream had come true. We had gotten three times what we’d bargained for at first, but looking at them now, it had all been worth it–the difficult pregnancy because of how big I’d been, how little space had been left for my organs after the babies had taken up all the space, and the labor I’d had to endure.
Everything had been worth it now that I looked at their perfect little faces and their delicate, perfect fingers. I had never thought that motherhood would be this overwhelming. To think that I–we–had created this was almost impossible.
“Have you thought about names?” Lily asked me.
I glanced at Evan. We’d spoken about it.
“We were thinking of keeping the flower streak going that your mother had started,” I said. “We’ll name the two girls Rose and Jasmin.”
Lily smiled. She hadn’t known her mother–Clara had died before Lily had been able to remember her–but I knew it meant something to her.
“And the boy?” she asked softly.
“Evan, Jr.,” Evan said with a grin.
Lily laughed. “That’s perfect,” she said, looking down at the baby in her arms.
“That’s baby Rose,” I said to her, and she stroked a finger along the cheek of the sleeping baby.
“Rose,” Lily said. “I have three little siblings now.”
Evan got up and put Evan Jr. in one of the basinets the nurses had provided for the babies.
“We’re going to be a great family, princess,” he said, kissing me. I nodded, smiling. We were doing so well now. “Which is why I want you to be a permanent part of it.”
I frowned at him. “I thought I was?”
Evan nodded. “You are, but…”
He kneeled next to the bed, and Lily and I gasped at the same time.
