Page 94 of The Summer of ’98

Leroy left me in the car so that he could find a wheelchair. But when he returned, he was followed by nurses and a stretcher. I would have been embarrassed at all the fuss if I wasn’t whimpering through another contraction. The nurses let me know that a doctor was waiting inside and that it would all be okay.

I felt Leroy’s hand squeezing mine as he ran alongside the stretcher, the bright lights blinding me as we pushed through the double doors. There was nothing slow about the process, which didn’t seem to comfort me. There was a definite panic as the nurses spoke over me in jargon that I couldn’t understand. The jolts of the stretcher, the bumps and bangs as we turned corners and went over dips in the doorways, just added to the discomfort of each contraction. This was not how it had gone in the birthing videos. They had attempted to dispel all of those birthing myths about the panic and the rush and the speed of having a baby. According to the videos, during the early stages of labor, you should be reasonably calm, but there was nothing relaxed about these nurses right now.

When we arrived at the delivery suite, a couple of scrubbed doctors greeted me with calming voices. “Right, first things first,” said the first doctor, an older man who spoke to me through his mask. “We’re going to help you change into a gown and then I need to do an internal and find out how those babies are doing. This needs to happen quickly because you’re not full term and we want to get the situation under control as quickly as possible. The good news is, it’s not uncommon for twins to arrive early; as long as they’re good, it’ll all be fine. Good?”

I nodded and let the nurses do most of the hard work, getting me out of the clothes that I was wearing. Leroy stayed beside me but changed into his own pair of scrubs as well. I was offered modesty for the most part, but I was past caring. I just wanted to know that my babies were okay.

Once I was changed, strapped up to a monitor that allowed the doctor to hear the babies’ heartbeats, and given an internal examination, the panic seemed to slow. The doctor draped the gown back over me and removed his gloves as he walked toward me. “All right, the babies’ heartbeats are wonderful. There’s no stress and, yes, they are early, but like I said, that’s not uncommon.”

“They’re coming now?”

He nodded and rested his hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to keep a very close eye on that monitor and if anything changes, we’ve got a surgery room on standby. All right? We can do this. How’s Dad feeling?”

I peered up at Leroy who was beside the head of the bed, his fingers laced with mine. He was pale—his usual golden skin had become a lot whiter. But he swallowed and nodded. “Yep. Good. I’m good. As long as she’s good. I’m good. Are you good?”

I met his concerned stare and smiled. “I’m good.”

I was in labor for three hours. I couldn’t move from the bed. The contractions became worse and worse, longer and far more painful, before I was eventually instructed to push. The nurses stood at the foot of the bed, where the doctor was seated and waiting. He peered up at me, but I couldn’t see straight. I was exhausted. “Push Ellie,” he shouted with encouragement. “Push for me.”

Leroy leaned down and ran his fingers through my damp hair as he murmured with a loving tone. “You can do this, Els. I’m here. I’m right here. You can do this.”

I gripped his hand and sat up, putting as much as I could behind a push. I took a deep breath and started again, repeating the action until the doctor told me to stop. “We have a head! Just hang on while I check for a cord, okay? Don’t push again until I give the go.”

It was almost impossible, but I resisted the urge to push for a few moments before he shouted for me to go again. So, I did, pushing with all that I had until I felt the pressure relieve and the most precious noise filled the entire room. The piercing cries of our baby.

“Come and cut the cord, Leroy,” the doctor said. “We have a little man here.”

I felt tears falling down my cheeks as I listened to the sweet cries of our little Drayton. Leroy rushed over and cut the cord before the nurse carried him over to the little station in the corner of the room to do their checkups. I wasn’t offered a lot of downtime before the doctor told me that the next one was on her way out. The entire process began all over again and when she came out, piercing screams and all, I was a mess. I couldn’t stop crying with the most overwhelming sense of joy and exhaustion that I had ever felt.

“Mark down 9:33 p.m. and 9:47 p.m. on the twelfth of January,” the doctor called out, “nineteen ninety-nine.”

Plump pink lips, skin softer than silk, innocence exuding from their small bodies. After their arrival, the doctors needed to put the twins on a machine to ensure that their lungs were working. They both needed a little bit of help as they weren’t fully developed yet. And we would be here for a while before we could go home. But we were allowed to cuddle, so we were making the most of it.

Leroy sat beside me on the edge of the bed and held Abigail in his arms, her five-pound frame wrapped in pink swaddle while I held Drayton, the little blue bundle of perfection. I couldn’t get over how beautiful they both were. How something so delicate and fragile could hold so much power. I’d never felt this sort of sense of protection or determination before.

Leroy never stopped watching Abigail. He talked to her, his hushed voice telling her what a sweet little angel she was.

Their lips moved, their little tongues peeping out as they yawned and squeaked. I giggled at the way Drayton opened his eyes, slowly blinking and staring up at me. My heart had never been so full.

“I’m so proud of you,” Leroy said, watching me with a sincere gaze. “You did an outstanding job and I will never be able to express with words how proud and how in love with you I am.”

My lip quivered as he leaned across and kissed me, stealing the air in my lungs and giving me life, all at the same time.

Childbirth is exhausting. You hear about it, the toll that it takes on your body and the fatigue that lingers afterward. Still, I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to wake up again once I fell asleep. Leroy was a huge help overnight. The nurses were so impressed with how attentive he was. He jumped as soon as the twins cried; he helped me latch them onto the breast since I could barely open my eyes. He changed their diapers. He cuddled them back to sleep. Apparently, they didn’t do much of anything anyway, just eating and sleeping. The nurses liked to remind us that regardless of what people said about newborns, this was the easiest part.

Eleanor and Jacob arrived sometime after lunch the next day, I was in the middle of pulling my hair into a new bun. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I redid it, my hair felt all wrong. I needed a shower more than anything and I’d been hoping to have had one before they arrived. All my worry disappeared when I saw Eleanor with an armful of extravagant gifts with big bows and satin wrapping. Of course she would go right overboard.

“Oh sweetheart,” she stopped at the foot of the bed, Jacob close behind her, beaming. “You look beautiful. Glowing.”

That had to be a lie, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

“Leroy,” she demanded her son’s attention, looking at the side-by-side bassinets where Drayton and Abigail were sleeping. “Come and take these gifts so I can get those beautiful babies in my arms.”

He grabbed them from her and set them on my lap as Jacob and Eleanor went for the babies. Leroy sat on the bed beside me and we made quick work of tearing wrapping paper open.

“Ooh,” Jacob chuckled as he scooped Drayton up. The five-pound bundle looked microscopic in his hold. “Look at that. Most newborns look like wrinkled toes. These ones are beautiful.”

Leroy laughed. “Wrinkled toes?”

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