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“Do your nipples hurt?” I ask Blake.
We’re sharing a hospital chamber after, in a twist of fate, we ended up giving birth on the same night: the summer solstice.
As new moms, we’re now trying to get to grips with breastfeeding our newborns.
“Yeah, they hurt. They’ve been sucked raw by this little monster.” She caresses the forehead of the adorable baby sleeping on her.
In return, I stare at the little human bundle snoozing on me, relishing his weight on my chest, still marveling at the overwhelming love infusion I get every time I look at my son.
“And how’s everything down there?” I ask.
“Eh, good enough if I don’t sit directly on it.”
“I can’t believe no one told us we’d be needing to sit on an iced postpartum pillow for a week.”
“I already feel better compared to yesterday.”
“Yeah, me, too, but I’m never having sex again.”
A soft knock on the doorframe distracts us.
“Hello mamas, am I disturbing?” John appears on the threshold, making butterflies explode in my lower belly, no matter that we’ve been living together for months now. It’s like every time I see him, my brain gets short-circuited by a mix of uncontainable attraction and aching love.
I shake my head and rearrange my hospital gown.
Blake chuckles. “Bet you’re reconsidering that last statement already.”
“What statement?” John asks.
“That her JJ won’t be up to make whoopee ever again.”
John sighs. “We’re adults; we can say vagina and have sex.”
Blake mock-scoldingly covers her sleeping baby’s ears. “There are babies in the room.”
John chuckles and sits on the bed next to me, leaning in to kiss my forehead. “You need me to ask for more painkillers?”
“No, I need to travel back in time to when my doo-dah was intact.” I pause for a second. “Or fast forward to when it’ll be healed.”
“Don’t worry,” John says. “We won’t be getting much sleep in the next few months. You’ll blink and a year will have passed.”
“That sounds reassuring.”
“What sounds reassuring?” Gabriel strolls into the room next.
“How little sleep we’re going to get in the foreseeable future,” I say.
Blake’s husband sits on her bed in a twin position to John’s. “I’ll take a sleepless night with these two over an undisturbed one alone a thousand times.”
John makes a let’s-talk-again-in-a-month-you-fool grimace and shakes his head benevolently. He’s the only one who’s already successfully raised a child and has the faintest idea of what the next few months are going to look like. He’s also a doctor, trained not to sleep every other night. That will help.
I squeeze his arm. The idea of having him by my side, every day—and night— fills me with relief and unbridled joy. I don’t know how I ever thought doing this alone would be preferable.
A nurse walks into the room. “How are you gals doing? Need anything?”
Both Blake and I shake our heads, saying we’re fine.
The nurse leaves, and John says, “I checked with Dr. Townsend. You should both be good to go home tomorrow.”
