Back to us | Alexia Putellas

Complete...

"Mama's got a game today, so can you be extra good for Mami please Jordi?" I asked our eldest son as we sat at the table eating breakfast.

Isy and Enzo were still upstairs, it had been a rough night with him waking up every hour, so I had gotten up with Jordi first thing this morning and told her to stay in bed and get some more sleep. It was my first game back after Enzo arrived today so I wasn't going to be around this afternoon to help with the boys, and Mama, who would usually have come with her was away for the week so it was the least I could do.

"Are we coming to watch? I want to come and watch!?" He asked excitedly with a mouthful of pancake.

"I think so" I nodded, smiling at his enthusiasm. 

Jordi and I finished breakfast and he went to play in the living room while I tidied up. It was about 9 am when Isy came downstairs with Enzo in her arms and a smile on her face as she joined me in the kitchen still wearing her pyjamas.

"It's game day!" She beamed, looking much more refreshed than when I left her in the bedroom.
"Enzo, today is the day you get see Mama play!" She talked to the baby in her arms before passing him to me.

"How are you feeling?" She asked as she headed towards the coffee machine.

"Good, I'm excited to get back on the pitch... Oh, Ingrid called this morning. She's still not been cleared to play so she said that she'll come with you and the boys"

"Oh, thank god! The idea of taking both of them without Eli's help has actually been terrifying me and Ingrid is great with Jordi"

The four of us spent the rest of spent the rest of the morning at the house. I prepped everything that I needed for the game and helped Isy get everything that she needed for the game sorted so she had as little stress as possible once I'd left. Two children was a lot to handle especially on your own so I was so grateful that Isy had agreed to come to the game.

Isy's POV

Ale left the house just after lunch, kissing me goodbye multiple times as it was obvious that she was feeling guilty. Our baby bubble was well and truly over now and we were back into the routine of training and games, but now we had double the amount of children. It was definitely an adjustment, but it's one that we knew we could manage.

The game didn't start until five which meant that we had time for Enzo to have one of his many naps before leaving the house. Jordi had outgrown his nap time a while ago, but before Ale left she had persuaded him that a nap would be good idea today so that he could come onto the pitch after the game and play with Mateo before bedtime.

So for the first time it what felt like years I had some time to myself, Ale was out, the boys were asleep and I could hear myself think. I made myself another coffee which was the only thing that kept me going through the newborn stage and sat down on the sofa with Nala.

The house was quiet and actually being able to hear myself think made me realise that I was the happiest I have ever been. My dream for as long as I can remember was to become a mother, to settle down and build my own family and that dream has finally come true. I am happy in myself, I love my wife more than I ever have, even more than in the new relationship stage where we couldn't keep our hands off each other or the honey moon stage after rekindling and getting married. I loved my boys more than life itself, they were a part of both of us and having them has made my life feel complete for the first time. Being adopted had always made me feel lost... like something was missing and finally finding my birth mother and getting in contact didn't make that go away. The occasional email didn't fix my hatred of being alone, the cards on my birthday didn't make me feel more loved and the inevitable 'I don't think meeting up is going to be good for either of us' didn't break my heart like I thought it would. It turns out that the mother who abandoned me as a newborn wasn't what was making me unhappy, it was not having my true family around.

Being a footballer had been the best part of my life for so long, but now I am out of it I've realised just how it had affected me. I signed my first contract at 17 which meant that I had to grow up so quickly, I was sent out on loan so many times in my early career that I never really had time to settle anywhere. When I joined Barca the first time it was the first time I felt like I could take a breath and start a life in a city that felt like home. Meeting Ale was the best thing that ever happened to me and ignoring the two years that we spent apart the last almost ten years had been the happiest of my life.

She was my life, and so were our boys.

The sound of our newborn son stirring through the baby monitor drew me out of my own thoughts, I had been sat here thinking about everything for nearly two hours. It was almost time to leave to go to the game, but first I needed to get the boys ready. I headed upstairs to feed Enzo and get him dressed into his Barca kit (the same one that Jordi wore almost 4 years ago) before waking Jordi up and getting him organised.

We sat in the family and friends section of the stadium with Ingrid, Jordi spent most of the game sat on her lap while I had Enzo in the carrier. Ingrid had been off the pitch for just over 2 months with a very vague injury, the club had reported that it was a foot injury giving out no details on the severity or the time she would be out for which was suspicious for a club that liked to give out every medical detail about their players. The only other time they had been this secretive was when I was pregnant with Jordi, but I wasn't going to push her to find out, they would tell us when they were ready if they even were pregnant...

"How's your foot?" I asked during the half-time break, Jordi has crashed out and was asleep in her lap, his head resting against her as she wrapped her arms tightly around him.

"Oh, um- it's getting there I think" she said awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with me as she looked down onto the empty pitch.

Ale was exhausted when we got back home, she played almost 60 minutes which was a lot considering that she had been off for just over a month. She took Jordi onto the pitch after the game and once the crowds had died down Enzo and I joined them. It was nearly 10pm when we got back to the house, The boys both fell asleep on the journey home and thankfully transferred into their beds with relative ease which meant that we could do the same.

"I've never been as happy as I am now" I whispered to my wife as we laid next to each other in bed, both exhausted from the day.

"Me neither" She smiled widely, her eyes still sleepy as she reached over and pulled me closer to her.
"I've never been so exhausted either" she laughed as she kissed the top of my head.

"I mean it, you and the boys are my absolute world. I thought that finding my birth mother was going to make me happy and feel complete, but it didn't. The love that you have given me and the love that I have for our two beautiful boys, that's what has made me truly happy. I love our little family so much it genuinely make me want to cry"

"I love our family too, more than anything else in the world"