I had to wait outside the operating room while they gave Emmie her epidural. It took them ten minutes to do that, and it was the longest ten minutes of my life. When they finally let me in, Em was lying flat on her back. A tent separated her head from the rest of her body so she couldn’t see what was going on with the doctor and his team.

I tried not to think about what the doctor was doing to Emmie as I took the seat the nurse said was for me. Tears were pouring down Emmie’s face when I sat down beside her and took her trembling hand. “Are you in pain?”

She shook her head. “No… Just scared.”

I gave her the best smile I could muster. “Me too,” I admitted.

“It’s been a roller coaster the last five months, hasn’t it?” she whispered.

“Roller coasters are fun,” I assured her, leaning closer so I could kiss away her tears. The sight of her damp face hurt me like nothing else could, and I wanted to take all the pain and anxiety away for her.

“Okay, Emmie. It won’t be long now. Another minute and this baby will be all yours.” The doctor spoke up from the other side of the tent. “How you doing?”

“There’s a lot of pressure,” she told him.

“That’s normal considering I’m pushing around inside of you.” The doctor paused and then he was talking to the team of nurses and other medical staff around him. Asking for suction, demanding a clamp here and one there. I was terrified with each new command that left his mouth.

The room grew completely quiet as he started tugging and pulling and Emmie cried out, her hand tightening around my own to the point that I was sure I was going to have a few crushed bones in my hand. “Emmie?” I stroked her hair with my free hand. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I… I’m okay,” she whispered.

“Here she is!” the doctor announced, and then the room was filled with a sound I had never thought was pleasant but suddenly sounded like the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

My daughter started to cry, making her presence known in the world.

Tears burned my eyes and I was unable to contain them this time as a nurse urged me to follow her and the screaming bundle in her arms. I watched them intently as they wiped some smelly goo off my child. She was weighed and measured. A little cloth cap was put on her head, and she was wrapped in a clean blanket.

And then I was being handed the most precious little bundle in the world. She didn’t smell good at all, and she was a squealing, angry mess. But the instant she was placed in my arms, my heart filled with the kind of love I knew I had never felt before.

For months I had thought I knew what it was like to love the child I knew was growing inside of Emmie. But now that I actually had her in my arms, I was aware that those feelings had only been for a dream. Reality was so much stronger, so much better.

I hugged her close, talking softly to the still crying baby. But the more I talked, the calmer she became until she was completely quiet, seeming to hang onto my every word as I told her how happy I was to finally meet her.

“Nik?”

Emmie’s weak voice reached me and I rushed back to her, still holding onto the baby. The doctors were working fast to get Emmie put back together, and she looked exhausted when I sat down on the chair beside of her. “Look at what I have, Em.” I smiled through my tears and positioned the baby so Emmie could see our daughter. “She’s so beautiful, baby.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s perfect,” I assured her.

A nurse came up beside me telling Emmie all about height and weight and something about an Apgar score. Whatever Apgar happened to be, the baby’s seemed to be good, and Emmie was smiling as she started to drift off to sleep.

Chapter 18

Once Upon A Time

Mia Nicole Armstrong came home later than we had originally expected, and so did Emmie.

Mia had jaundice, and not just a little bit either. She looked like an Umpa Lumpa from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory by the second day. Her pediatrician said that it was because Emmie’s blood type was so different from my own and that Mia had my blood type. She had to be put under a light that would help bring her bilirubin levels down. During that time I felt such heartache and panic that it made my chest hurt to the point that I was sure I was having an anxiety attack.

The doctor and nurses kept trying to reassure us all that Mia was going to be okay. Jaundice was completely common when it came to newborns. I had to keep reminding myself that Mia was okay, that there were babies that were sicker and not nearly as lucky. If the nurses thought that I was an over anxious daddy, it was nothing compared to Emmie.

She was a wreck. The minute they put the little blindfold on Mia and put her under the light Emmie became hysterical. She tore her stitches from the C-section and had to be sedated for two days to keep her in bed.

It was a scary week and I was beyond happy to get home with my family.

Of course that all flew out the window when Emmie’s postpartum depression set in. My Gods! Were all women like that after having a baby? She could flay me alive with just a look, and her tongue was so sharp it left me bleeding from the inside out. And when she wasn’t tearing me and the others apart, she was crying.

Emmie’s scars from her mother went deeper than any of us could possibly have guessed. She was terrified of being a bad mother. Em wanted to take care of Mia herself. All of my help was shunned. I couldn’t pick Mia up when she was crying without causing an argument, something I tried to avoid. Everything was adding up and Emmie was looking worse and worse every day.

I spent more and more time in the studio so I wasn’t in Emmie’s way. It was killing me that I couldn’t help her or comfort her. Staying away was the only thing I could think of to ease some of her stress.

One evening Layla met me at the door as soon as I got home with the guys. She had the baby in her arms and the baby monitor in one hand. I frowned at the combination. Shouldn’t the monitor have only been necessary if the baby was in her crib?

“What’s up?” I asked, staring down at Mia with a tired smile. Just because Emmie wasn’t letting me help didn’t mean that I was getting any sleep when she got up with Mia throughout the night.

“Emmie has been sleeping all day,” Layla told me quietly. “I think she’s going to calm down and let you start helping her more.”

I felt tears stinging my eyes and blinked them a few times to keep from embarrassing myself in front of Layla. “Is she okay?”