The Swap // Denis Stoff

21

It's been a week since Denis and I welcomed our little cutie into the world. She was in hospital for a week until they decided to release her. She had difficulty breathing on her own but has grown so much stronger over the past few days. Just looking at her makes me cry; everything about her is so perfect. She was a tiny 4 and a half pounds when she was born, but the life is just radiating out of her. Her eyes are open and looking around and she grabs my thumb when I hold her hand.

It took us a while to decide what we wanted to call her. We'd had the discussion before but we kept arguing over it. Denis wanted to call her Ukrainian names but I wasn't having any of it. 

'But she has a Ukranian second name! Having an English first name and a Ukrainian last name will sound dumb!'

That was his only excuse but I put my foot down, so eventually we decided to meet in the middle.

'Anya.' I coo at her as she wriggles about. I'm trying to put her babygrow on but she's not very happy about it, making all sorts of confused noises. Denis is on his way to pick us up and we are ready to go home. The boys came to visit a few days ago and they all melted when they saw her. I'm pretty sure one or two of them cried. Ciara brought Fae and it was just so lovely to have everyone in the same room. 

As happy as it all was I couldn't stop thinking about how strange Denis was acting when I was in labour. Why was he chatting shit about "having me back" and stuff? I never asked before because I didn't want to ruin anything but it's eating me up now.

'Knock knock.' I hear a voice saying as they come through the door. Denis appears with some balloons.

'Aw what is that!' I smile, walking towards him. I kiss him softly on the lips and he lingers, holding me.

'Just some balloons for Anya.'

'And here's me thinking they were for me!'

'No way! You're not my number one girl anymore Amber. Duh.'

'Duh.' I mock as we walk over to Anya's cot. I dressed her in all pink, of course. Denis actually went out of his way to get custom made babygrow's which had an AA logo across the front, and he had said a few times that if we didn't dress her in it on her first day home he'll not talk to me. Not that that would bother me too much if he didn't talk to me but I had to humour him of course, so I put it on her.

'You did it!' He laughs, picking Anya up. He rocks her and makes funny noises at her and I finish packing up.

'Ready?' I smile, taking them both in. Anya is just looking at her daddy like "what the heck is going on" and Denis is lapping it all up. He completely ignores me and just laughs at our beautiful little girl.

'You're so silly.' He coos in a funny voice, smoothing her dark brown hair down. 

We say our thankyous and goodbyes to the nurses and doctors and make our way outside. We get to the door of the hospital and I see the most ridiculous looking thing ever. 

'Denis!' I shout as I see them. All of the guys, including their girlfriends. standing in the parking lot with "WELCOME HOME" and "IT'S A GIRL" banners. They're holding them up and waving them about. There are also at least 20 balloons. They all pull party poppers and confetti goes everywhere. 'No way!' I laugh. I feel myself getting emotional and I start crying. They all come towards us, giving Denis and I a massive group hug.

'I love you guys.' I cry. I feel so happy right now, but there's a pang of sadness. Denis has already taken a week off tour, and he has two weeks left. I know that doesn't sound like a lot and I know I am lucky that we had our child at the end of tour, but I am going to miss him. I am going to need to take our baby on a long ass flight back to Ukraine and I'm going to be all by myself.