Page 166 of Choose the Bears

A tear slid down my cheek, one I hadn’t even felt forming and then another joined it. More and more tears, because to my horror, I was bawling my freaking eyes out in the middle of a crowded department store. Every single one of them clustered closer. Hands went to my shoulders, rubbing circles there, but it didn’t help.

Or rather it did, but that comfort just made the tears come harder and faster.

“It’s OK.” Ingrid’s voice was like a lifeline thrown in a rocking sea and I held tight to it. “All of this is OK. You are doing so well. Your babies are beautiful and thriving. My lazy son is now prioritising what’s important.”

“You are so strong,” Meryl said. “More than I was when the twins were born. I didn’t let my mother go home for a month. I was near hysterical at the idea of being left alone with these two crying babies all the time and you’ve been trying to do it all by yourself.”

“But you don’t need to.” Jane was always restrained, unfailingly polite in her conversations, but right now a hidden steel rose. “You don’t need to. You’re surrounded by people who want, no, need to help?—”

“And you’ve just got to let them.”

I pulled back, my cheeks burning hot with embarrassment. The strange looks I was getting from other shoppers only making that worse.

“I don’t think I need mum jeans,” I croaked out. “Stanley cups are overpriced for what they are and bras… Later.” I nodded and then started to make for the door. “Operation Mum,I think it needs to take on a different form than what you’re thinking.”

I parkedthe car and then had the door open, running towards my house before anyone could say a word. The door was thrust open and in I rushed. The TV was playing some brightly coloured kids show, but I barely noticed the noise as I stepped inside.

Home. Family. Mine.

It felt like I’d been divorced from those feelings, the insane learning curve of dealing with twins cutting off my love for my family like someone had turned a tap off inside me.

Not now.

I saw Koda sitting on the floor with baby Sven, leaning forward and making funny faces, laughing as the little guy kicked his arms and legs even more wildly every time his dad got near. Lars was walking around with Kai strapped to his chest, pointing out the architectural features of the house and describing all the work he’d done, something baby Kai had no chance of understanding, but he did this.

He had his father’s undivided attention and knew that he was loved.

That’s all they really needed. Well, to be fed and changed as well, but this was what was important. That we were there, responsive, and loved them. Thorn slid down onto the floor beside Kai and then scooped him up into his arms.

“How about we give this bottle a go little guy? Mum prepared it just for you,” Thorn said, cradling my baby, our son against his chest. “There we go.”

My heart was in my chest, not sure what to feel as Kai’s brows creased. He was never quite sure about bottle feeding, but someinstinct kicked in and he latched on, sucking down the contents greedily.

“Like this?”

I knew exactly what Alaric was feeling when he carried Lars over to them, sitting down on the couch and holding our child a little awkwardly. In some ways it was a relief to see someone else struggling. I moved forward then, sitting down beside him, shocked when I could run my hands along his arms and shoulders and correct him slightly.

“He needs his head up a little higher.”

Alaric looked up at me, his eyes widening, then shifting to take in my new hair, his lips parting, ready to say something, then he sighed. Sven seemed to settle almost immediately, until he saw me.

Feeding time, that’s what his little kicks and thrashing arms told me, if his increasingly red face and grunts didn’t and my breasts ached, ready to be the one to feed him.

Not this time.

Some women didn’t breastfeed at all. Some did exclusively, never needing to pump. Some wanted to do the job themselves and some wanted to share the job and that’s was OK, I realised. Whatever we needed to do to raise our child into adulthood, healthy and well adjusted, was what we needed to do.

And right now I needed this.

To see Alaric hold the bottle for Sven to drink from. For me to reach over and correct the angle slightly. For us, all of us to share a moment as a family. I knew then that I had become the biggest obstacle to that. Some women were perfectly able to do everything on their own without missing a beat, and in that moment, I traded a heavy weight of guilt and shame for a much lighter feeling of acceptance.

“He’s feeding really well.”

“Really?” Alaric’s eyes met mine and I knew then that my praise was hitting him hard. “I haven’t really had much of a go at it yet because I was too scared I’d screw it up.”

“Perfect or don’t try at all, right?”

His smile seemed to take him by surprise, but once he got used to it, he nodded and it widened.

---