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Reece
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"That was perfect, Trinity. Just amazing. Baby number one is here, and it's a boy." The words were replaying over and over inside of my head. I know what he said was true because that was why we were here, but it just made things ten times more real to me. I was a father, and Griffin was holding my son in his arms.
"How is he?" Trinity was panting, still trying to catch her breath from the effort she had exerted to birth our first child. "Is he alright?" I could understand why she was nervous. We hadn't heard him cry yet.
Weren't babies supposed to cry when they were first born? Wasn't that the way it went? Babies came into the world crying. That was what we had all been led to believe. So why wasn't our baby crying yet?
I held Trinity close to me then, nerves coursing through both of us. I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. Trinity had said the only thing that I would have been capable of saying at that moment.
"He's fine." Griffin smiled at us. "He just needs to be cleaned up, that's all." We watched as he handed the baby off to a nurse and then went back to work on Trinity.
"What are you doing now?" I asked him, surprised as she was massaging my wife's abdomen.
"I am checking on baby number two's position and making sure that she is alright. We just need to wait until she is ready to make her grand entrance now."
"Oh." I admit I was only half listening to him as I had also been paying attention to the nurse across the room from us. She had taken our baby and was doing whatever needed to be done.
"Reece." Trinity clutched at the sleeve of the scrubs I was wearing. "Go check on him, please." The tone of her voice and the look in her eyes told me that she was worried about our baby.
"OK, I will be right back." I squeezed her hand and kissed her temple before leaving her.
I walked slowly across the room, each step feeling like it was taking me forever to complete. I was about to see my baby, my son, for the first time. I had seen something small and pink in Griffin's arms but I hadn't seen my baby clear enough. Now though, I was about to see what he really looked like.
Laying there on a white cloth with his arms and legs flailing was my baby. His little face was scrunched up, and his eyes were closed. It looked like he wanted to scream, but there was a tube in his mouth. That scared me, I immediately thought there was something wrong with him. But I heard a suction noise then and saw a lot of fluid moving out of my son's mouth. The nurse was clearing his airway.
As soon as enough of the fluids were removed, I heard a strangled cry come from my son's tiny little mouth. He was angry. Apparently, he didn't like that tube at all. Now that he was crying, and obviously breathing on his own, I saw that he was turning a more normal color. I hadn't even realized that he was pale and bluish at first, I just saw him and the tube.
Now that I was looking closer at him and what he looked like I saw that he was still covered in fluids. There was blood and other amniotic or pregnancy related fluids all over him. Now that he was crying though, the nurse had taken the cloth and was vigorously wiping him off. I just stood there and watched the whole process.
The nurse cleaned him up most of the way, then proceeded to weigh him. My son seemed to weigh just shy of two thousand five hundred grams, or about five and a half pounds. It was smaller than I was expecting given the typical size of babies born in the pack, but he was a twin so that seemed good to me I guess.
She measured him next, holding one of his legs in place so that she could see how long he was. That was another surprise. Given how little he weighed I didn't think he was going to be very tall, but he was twenty-two inches tall already. Such a big boy, he was already taking after his daddy. I couldn't help but think that as I smiled at him.
"NGH!" I heard Trinity cry out in pain, and I felt conflicted. I wanted to be at her side, but I wanted to stay there, looking at my son some more.
"Go be with your wife for right now, I will give him his first bath after everything is done, and when the next baby is here you can hold him." The nurse smiled at me after noticing my hesitation. I nodded at her, happy to have someone help me make the decision for me.
When I rushed back to my Little Bunny's side, I saw that she was in pain once more. Her brow was creased in pain and she looked even more exhausted than she did before.
"I'm here for you, baby. I'm here for you." I kissed her cheek when I crouched by her.
"H..how is he, Reece? Is Reagan alright?" She was still worried about our son.
"He's fine. He's perfect. And he's beautiful." I couldn't help but smile at her as I spoke.
"Really?" She smiled through the pain she was feeling then. "I want to see him. I want to hold him soon."
"You will, honey. You will." I held her hand and squeezed it tight. "Let's bring Rika into the world and then we can hold both of them, alright."
The second time went just the same as the first, only I wasn't stupid enough to look at the baby as it came out. I didn't need my resolve to buckle at all. I needed to be there for my family, they needed me.
I held Trinity's leg and helped her through the pushes like the nurse was doing. She would bear down and push for ten seconds at a time and each push left her exhausted. She didn't give up though, she just kept pushing as hard as she could. Before long Griffin exclaimed loudly that the second baby was out.
"It's a girl. She's here. You've got twins." Rika didn't scare us like her brother did, she cried right from the beginning. Her high baby cries sounded just like music to my ears, and I turned to kiss Trinity's hair while tears streamed down my cheeks.
"I'm so proud of you Trinity." I cried as I kissed her over and over again. "I'm so proud of you, and I love you so much."
"Reece." She called my name as she cried as well. "I love you too, Reece." We held each other for a moment, happy as we could be to finally have our children with us.
I waited to the side while Rika was cleaned up and measured. Trinity was still being attended to by Griffin and the nurses as they massaged her uterus and delivered the placentas. At the moment I didn't have anything to do but watch the happenings around me. While I waited though, I found out that Rika weighed about five pounds, or two thousand three hundred grams. She was smaller than her brother, in height too as she was only eighteen inches tall. She was going to be small like her mother.
I couldn't wait to hold the two of them in my arms and look at them closely in their faces. I wanted to see who they looked like more. I didn't care who they took after, I was just glad they were finally here.
It seemed to take a long time before everyone was done doing what they needed to do, and we were able to hold the babies. When it was time though, I was told to sit in the armchair that was next to Trinity's bed. She had been cleaned up and moved over to a clean bed now. Both of us were waiting quite impatiently for the nurses, both of them, to walk over with the babies in their arms.
"I am going to give you the baby boy first, alright Momma. He's hungry and needs to be fed, his sissy can wait a few minutes so if it's OK with you, Daddy can hold her first." I looked over at Trinity to see if she was alright with what was being suggested, I was fine with whatever she wanted. She was the one who had done all the work here.
"Yes, that's fine. But, uhm, I..I don't know how to nurse him." She looked scared as she held her arms apprehensively toward our son.
"Don't fret one bit, sweetheart, that's why we're here. We will walk you through it while Daddy over here holds your little girl. By the time you switch off with the babies you will be a pro at it."
The nurses, who were both different shifters, smiled at my Little Bunny supportively. I was glad that they were here to help. I watched as Trinity nodded and smiled at them as well, she was happy for the assistance just the same as I was.
The nurse who was holding the tiny little Rika came over to me. She passed the baby to me and showed me the proper way to hold her. I had held babies but not just minutes after they were born. This was nerve wracking.
Rika felt so small and fragile in my arms. I was nervous and too scared to move at all. Still, it all felt right as well. It seemed like the little baby was right where she needed to be.
I could hear the others talking around me, telling Trinity what to do and how to nurse the babies, but I couldn't actually understand a word of it. I was too enraptured by the beauty of my little girl's face. While I watched her sleep in my arms, I used just one finger to trace the curve of her soft cheek. Her face was so tiny that my hand seemed so large in comparison. I just wanted to protect her and take care of her forever. I knew what every father had ever felt for their daughter now. Just looking at her melted my heart.
I could tell that Rika actually took after me more in looks. Her full head of black hair was proof of that. I couldn't see her eyes so I didn't know whose she had, and they probably wouldn't be the true color yet anyway. But I could see my nose shape just slightly. I know it was too early to truly tell, but it looked like she favored me more.
Some time later, Trinity and I switched off with the babies. I handed her Rika so she could feed our little girl and she handed me Reagan. The nurses were still there to help her with feeding the baby while I watched our son's sleeping face.
I rocked Reagan slowly while gently patting his back. Just like with Rika, I traced the curve of his tiny cheek. He may be bigger than his sister, but he was still tiny. And I wanted to protect him as well. He may be my son who would most likely grow to be a strong warrior, but for now he was my tiny little baby that needed his daddy.
And looking at his dark brown hair I could see that Reagan most likely took after Trinity. That was cute. They each had one of our hair colors. I just wonder whose eyes they had. And I couldn't wait to see what their little personalities were going to be like.
For now though, I was just happy to be holding them and to have them here with us.
"Isn't he just the best dad, he's looking at them so sweetly." I barely heard the nurses' words as they spoke from behind me.
"I know, and I bet he is going to insist on celebrating both of their birthdays. Since one was both before midnight and one after."
"I know, they're even in different months."
I let their giggles flow over me, not even paying attention to them as I connected with my son.
