hits different - Taylor Swift and Travis kelce

bedrest and andrea

-Travis Pov-

"you know Maddison, mommy is freaking out a bit. She loves you and Avery so much that she wants to see you, but she can't. I promise she will be here soon though. She loves you to the moon and to Saturn" I say to Maddison through her incubator softly. They told me it's good to talk to them, as long as you keep the volume down. It can be comforting for some babies to know someone is there or some shit like that. I didn't actually pay full attention to why, I just jumped at the idea to talk to them.

I move over to Avery and say something similar to talk to him too. this is what I've been doing for the last hour, switching between them. Talking to them to just sitting there watching them. Seeing their little chests rise and fall is oddly comforting. It's a sign of life. and any sign of life right now is okay with me, fuck it's more than okay, it's everything.

After taking a few pictures I move back downstairs to see Taylor. it's been 10 hours since the twins were born, and it's getting a bit late. I want to be by all their sides all the time, but I can't. that's what's hard right now, I can't be everywhere at once. Taylor needs me, she needs my comfort and presence. But our babies need me too, especially when Taylor can't be there. I feel pulled in two directions, completely unsure of what's the right thing to do.

"how are they" she shoots up to a sitting position In bed before wincing, obviously in pain. "Taylor, lay down, please. You just had surgery" I ask her softly before taking a seat on the edge of her bed.

"I'm fine Travis. I just need to know how they are. Did Maddison's stats stabilize?" she bites her fingernails, something she does when she is stressed but hates that she does. I take her hand out of her mouth, intertwining our fingers. Maddison had some stats trouble earlier with her heart rate, but it stabilized thankfully. It was a little scary and lots of personnel helped out, but they got her stabilized again.

"she is fine, it was a little scare, and she has been fine since" I called her after the dust settled and told her about Maddison's little scare and we decided that I shouldn't come back down to Taylor right away, rather stay there just in case. But now they both seem completely fine... well as fine as you can be as preemies at their age.

"Did your mom arrive yet?" I ask her and she shakes her head "Not here, but the jet touched down. She texted me she was in the car on the way here" We decided that we need a second set of eyes, so Taylors' mom is coming out to keep Taylor company while I run up and down for the next few days. I don't want Taylor to be alone if I need to be upstairs because something is happening there. She needs someone by her side and her mom jumped on the first flight.

"I just" Taylor starts and looks away. I can see the moisture catching in the corner of her eye and I wipe it away before turning her head towards me again "Beautiful, what's wrong?"

"I just feel useless. As you can see them, it is probably my mom too. but I can't. all I can do is lay in this bed and root" she whimpers, and I bring her into my arms. "hey, you're healing and that's an important task. You can't be there for the babies if you're not completely fine yourself. And I don't want you to lie and say you're fine when I know you're not. It's going to take at least a few days of bed rest before you can come up and see them, you know that. but you're not useless, not at all. You're not rooting, you're healing."

Speaking of Andrea, she walks in the door with her bag in tow. "oh honey" she rushes over to her daughter, and I step aside so she can hug her. They greet each other before she comes over and hugs me as well "Hello Travis" "Hi Andrea."

I really like her; she is a good mom. Just like me, Taylor has always had parents who have been present in her life, and interested in helping her get where she wants to get. They packed up everything when Taylor was 14 to move to Nashville so Taylor could follow her dreams. Not all parents would do something like that, that's for damn sure. They upended their entire lives for her, for a dream just like a million other people in the world have. That's not something you can expect from your parents, but they did it because they believed in her. And look how that turned out, amazing. My parents did something similar, except for moving. They did everything they could, and turned every penny they could, so me and my brother could excel at the sports we wanted to do. whatever it was they made sure we could do it. I mean football, hockey, basketball, just everything. They were there for all of it.

"How are the babies?" Andrea says and takes a seat at her daughter's bedside. "I just saw them, and they are stable. Maddie had a little scare earlier that terrified us, but it's managed now. Not sure exactly what they did to fix her unstable heart, but they fixed it so it's fine."

Look I want to know what's going on with our kids, and I try to keep track of what they tell me. but there is only so much medical information I can take in before everything turns into stew. I'm not a medical professional, my knowledge ends in sports medicine I have personally experienced with our what my brother did. That's a far stretch from NICU medicine so I'm in over my head. But I should get points for effort, I guess? I don't know.

But I'm trying to listen and relay the information to Taylor the best I can. But she is better at this stuff than me. She is better at remembering medical shit and has been doing so through the entire pregnancy for god's sake. So I could really use her by my side up there to keep track, not that I'm going to tell her that and make her feel bad for not being able to come there yet. No, I'm going to keep trying and keep my mouth shut.

"That's good, she is as strong as her parents. And Avery? Is he doing, okay?" we talk a little about what's been going on with the babies and I do my best to tell Andrea everything I know so far. We decided to put Andrea on our NICU list so that she can visit the babies while I'm with Taylor and then we can trade off every once in a while. It sounds like the best solution for everyone right now.

"Have you talked to Ed and Donna Travis?" Andrea asks me and I nod "Yes, they are visiting my brother at the moment, but are ready to jump on a plane if we need them. But they didn't want to crowd us with too many people right now. It's going to be a long road ahead" we decided that we would only have one other person with us right now, just until Taylor is stable enough to move around herself. We didn't want the room filled with people because we have more than enough with taking care of ourselves and the babies right now, not being hosts to others. Not that they would expect to be wined and dined from a hospital, but we still want to keep it few and simple.

"We did send pictures though; Travis took some of the babies to show me and we wanted them to see them too," Taylor says and I nod. We sent some to them and Taylors' immediate family just to tell them that the babies were here and stable. Everyone is on pins and needles waiting for something to happen, seeing what comes next. it's still touch and go with them, and things could go wrong.

I try not to get my hopes up too far that things are going to stay this stable because I don't want to hit the floor when or if something happens. Preemies are tricky, a million things could go wrong with them. And things could also go wonderfully, you never know. They told us to take things an hour at a time, a minute at a time if things weren't looking too good. and I'm taking them seriously with that, taking things in small chunks at a time to not get overwhelmed.

I'm about to say something else when the door bursts open and the NICU doctor comes rushing in. "something has happened" he starts, and my blood turns cold.