Page 124 of Seven of Hearts

With trembling hands, I let go of Leah and started unsnapping her hospital gown. A shift beside the drape caught my eye, and I froze.

“What?” Leah said in a panic. “What’s wrong?”

“I see him,” I said as tears rolled down my face. That was my son. “He’s beautiful.”

“All right, Dad,” one of the scrubbed-up members of the pediatric team said as she held a squirming, screaming baby. “Have you held a baby before?”

I nodded, thinking back to holding Hunter and Zoey when they were newborns.

She carefully transferred the baby into my arms. “Take it slow and put him on mom’s chest.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. With careful movements, I laid our baby on Leah’s chest for skin-to-skin.

The surgical team never stopped swirling around us but, in that moment, time ceased.

Our tears bled together as I craned over the head of the operating table to hold Leah and keep a hand on our baby’s back.

One of the nurses brought warm blankets to cover the two of them from the chill of the operating room as the team worked diligently to finish the procedure and closed the surgical site.

“Logan,” Leah whispered, a brilliant smile growing across her face. “Look.”

Right then, he opened his eyes. They were dark and stormy as he peered around at the newness of it all.

“He looks just like you,” she said.

He did.

My heart clenched as the realization crashed into me. I had a son.

We were chauffeured to a recovery room where doctors and nurses popped in sporadically to make sure Leah and the baby were still stable, and perform checks and measurements.

By the time we made it up to the room where we would spend the next few days in the mother-baby unit , Leah was exhausted.

“Um, I’m sorry to be a bother,” Leah said to the nurse who had just slipped in to bring her a tankard of ice water and some snacks.

“You’re no bother, honey,” the lady said. “What can I do for you?”

“I really have to use the bathroom,” she admitted, glancing down at the fall risk bracelet that was stacked on top of her hospital bracelet.

“Sure thing. Let me just grab this to help you up,” the nurse said as she grabbed a bright yellow mobility aid and rolled it over. “My name’s Eva. We’re going to get to know each other real well, so don’t be shy.”

Eva carefully picked up the baby from Leah’s arms, laid him in the bassinet, and swaddled him like a burrito.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” I asked as I watched.

Her smile was bright. “Of course. Let’s take care of Mom first.”

I was still getting used to those titles, but seeing Leah perk up every time someone called her “Mom” was one of the highlights of my life.

“I’ll help,” I said as I jumped up to round the bed and brace my arm behind Leah’s back.

Eva gave Leah a wink. “You’ve got a good one.”

Leah groaned and pressed her hand over the incision site as we shifted her over to the mobility aid that helped her go from sitting to standing.

“Hurts,” she cried out.

Eva reassured her that the first days were the hardest as we helped her into the bathroom. I listened while Eva talked Leah through all the pad options that the hospital kept stocked and the recommendations to use a squirt bottle to clean herself rather than toilet paper.

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