Coming Home

Chapter 31

Four Months Later

I awoke to the sensation of lips trailing across my skin. I smiled sleepily as I felt the lips travel from my temple, across my cheek, along my jaw, to my neck. I slowly opened my eyes to see Cayden hovering over me, his palms pressed against the bed on either side of my head as he suspended himself above me.

“How are my girls this morning?” he asked once he noticed I was awake, leaning down to place a kiss on my forehead.

“I’m fine. As for this other girl, I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I joked with a smile, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck.

“It’s a girl. Just you wait and see,” he said, giving me a dazzling smile.

“We’ll find out in a few hours,” I said before leaning up to press my lips against his.

One of his hands remained pressed against the bed while the other one traveled down my body to rest on my swollen stomach. I smiled into the kiss as I felt his hand caressing my stomach. Cayden was so excited about this pregnancy. He would spend hours talking to and stroking my stomach. He said he wanted to be there for every single thing in this baby’s life as he wasn’t able to be there for the boys. Guilt washed through me when he said that, but he assured me that it was okay and that he was happy with the way things had turned out. I knew he was but I couldn’t help feeling guilty about keeping him and our sons apart. I know it was what I thought was best but I couldn’t help but look back and regret it.

“Come on baby girl. We have stuff to do today,” Cayden said softly as he pulled away.

I uncurled my arms from around his neck reluctantly, not wanting to get up quite yet. Chuckling at my reluctance, Cayden got to his feet before reaching down and helping me up.  He wrapped his arms around me once again and placed a kiss on my forehead before releasing me so I could get dressed.

“Where are the boys?” I questioned curiously, noticing for the first time that I couldn’t hear the noises of their morning routine.

“Our moms picked them up earlier. They said it’d be too hard to take them to the doctor’s office with us, plus they were going to pick them up later anyway,” Cayden answered before gently nudging me towards the closet and walking out of the room.

I walked into the adjourning bathroom and took a shower before stepping out and pulling on a pair of jeans and a tank top. My hands rested on my six month baby bump as I looked at my stomach in the mirror. I still felt a pang of sadness whenever I thought about the baby I had lost but I was excited for the one I still had. I couldn’t wait to meet my baby and neither could anyone else. We had explained as best as we could to Asher and Cain and they were excited. They didn’t understand it fully, but they did know that there was a baby in Mommy’s tummy.

“Are you ready baby girl?” Cayden asked a few minutes later as I walked into the kitchen, tossing me a banana.

“Yes!” I squealed, suddenly becoming very excited.

We had a doctor’s appointment to find out the gender of the baby and we were both excited. We had a competition going on about the gender of the baby. Cayden was convinced we were having a little girl while I thought we were having a boy. I wanted a little girl but I knew we’d love the baby just the same if it were a boy.

Twenty minutes later we were at the doctor’s office. We didn’t have to wait long before we were called back into the room. I was instructed to lie down and pull my shirt up. Once that was done, the doctor spread the cold gel on my stomach before getting the wand thing and moving it across my stomach. In seconds, the sound of the baby’s heartbeat filled the room, making both Cayden and I break out into grins.