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After three months of typical British spring with rain showers that had flooded the country for a solid week, the weather was beginning to show signs of summer as the sun pierced through the clouds for the first time in weeks. Soft morning light shimmered down over the dew in the garden as Gaia gazed out of the window in the conservatory. She had been up for an hour already, having hardly slept at all for two weeks straight. When Alfie had turned three last week, she had struggled to make it through the day until she had eventually fallen asleep before she had even put him to bed.
The timing of the past year had not been ideal. When she and Evan had decided to open their home to Max, setting to work on converting their old dining room into a bedroom, they had decided to wait a little longer to try for one more baby when their time would be occupied with rehabilitating their new houseguest. It was only two months after Max had come home, however, after ten weeks of physical therapy in a rehabilitation centre, that Gaia had realised her weight gain was not down to her stress eating, but the life growing inside her.
Now, she gazed down at the pram that she gently rocked, exhaustion dragging her eyelids down as she stifled a yawn. The past fortnight had been difficult, but it was impossible to resent the strain she had been under when she watched her children sleeping, their eyelids flickering as they dreamt. Once she was sure that they were sleeping, she brought the pram to a stop and stood, tightening her dressing down around herself before dragging herself into the kitchen.
A cake was slowly baking in the oven, the delicious scent filling the room, and she heaved a sigh as she crouched down to check it, her body still aching ever since she had finally left the hospital. The five days for which she had been confined to the room had been some of the hardest of her life, though it was the first twenty-four hours that had been the worst, when her mind had been to addled by painkillers to understand why she couldn't see her children. She had cried constantly when Evan wasn't by her side, begging every passing nurse to let her go home and be with her family, until at last, nine days ago, she had been discharged with a warning to take it easy.
Her pregnancy had gone unnoticed for the first three months, when she had been too preoccupied to attribute her nausea to anything other than the stress of bringing Max home from rehab, slotting her into their lives. Ever since then, however, it had been a difficult one, until she had eventually been forced into bed rest for the final three weeks, unable to work. With Zara in the midst of her revision and then her exams, yet another life upheaval couldn't have come at a worse time, with Evan rushing off his feet to keep his family together while he and Max manned the café.
The day had come at long last on the seventh of May, seven days before Alfie's birthday, when a thirteen-hour labour had almost ended in tragedy. Gaia hadn't understood what was going on when moments after giving birth, she had been rushed into theatre with a hemorrhage that threatened her life, and Evan had begged the surgeons to do whatever they needed to do to save his wife. The emergency surgery had resulted in a hysterectomy, the last resort to stop her from bleeding out, but she hadn't wept when her husband had broken the news to her. She couldn't be sad when her family was complete.
