Ours

Chapter 29: Tomorrow.

Well,  'tomorrow' is finally here and 'tomorrow ' is today. Yaay! The day when everything goes back to normal. I woke up very early and took out the shoebox containing all the letters Duke sent over the course of seven months. I approximately had over  two hundred and ten letters to read. What do they say; the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step right? I opened the box and found out the letters had been arranged in order of the dates they arrived. This needs some popcorn and juice. Unfortunately, I only had juice. I guess that will do. The letters weren't lengthy. Most of them were about thirty words summarizing one reason why he loves and needs me. I was so smitten after going through a few. The current one I was reading was funny chemistry pick up lines which went like this;

  Baby, you must be made up of uranium and ion because all I see is U and I together.

According to the second law of thermodynamics, you are supposed to share your love with me.

    Please baby, my alpha-helix misses seeing you in my beta- plated sheets.

All chemistry aside, Biologically, I can't thrive without you if you aren't Physically by me. I love you.

That third one got me laughing so loud that I peed on my self. I was feeling lazy so I just shifted to the dry part of the bed. And continued reading. About some forty minutes later, which was around 5:30 am, I was halfway through the letters. When I felt pain course through my abdomen. I relaxed for a while and continued reading but after some minutes I felt the pain again and it was intense than the first one. As a first time mom, it took some few minutes to realize that what I thought was 'pee' was actually my water that broke and all the sharp pains were contractions. That was almost two hours ago. I screamed so loud, in pain and fear, that the whole family was in my room within the twinkle of an eye. Immediately mom saw me, she didn't need to be told what was happening. She rubbed my back in hopes of soothing me while daddy got the car ready.
  "Baby breathe... In.... Out. Don't panic, you will be fine. It takes some hours to deliver when your water breaks so calm down okay",  she said.
  'Ma, it broke two hours ago'.
Now mom was panicking too and we both started screaming at dad to hurry up. My sis grabbed my bag and away we went. In the middle of the journey, my phone rang and mom handed it over to me. The caller ID showed 'Devil of a husband'. Don't judge me, I was angry at him. I answered and heard his 'morning voice' which showed he just woke up.
 
"Am I dreaming or I missed your call yesternight"?

Typical me, was about to give a sarcastic reply when another contraction hit again. Arghhhhhhhhhh!  I screamed into the phone.
  "Baby what is going on?  Are you okay?  Please talk to me, was his reply.
  Panting heavily, I responded
"We, arghhh... mmmm..I, sweet Jesus.... Ouch! It..
At this point mom snatched the phone and explained to him what I was trying to tell him in gibberish.  The phone was put on loudspeaker and he tried calming me down but I could tell he was panicking as well. When I started crying, he said;

"sunshine, calm down okay we don't you wasting all that energy now otherwise your energy stores will be depleted for the main event"

"Don't you dare preach to me. Calm?  Try having a baby, then come back and tell me to remain calm. Oh God, why do I have to be the only one that suffers for something two people enjoyed doing. Its not fair", I managed to say between pain and tears.

Now, they were all laughing. You people think its cool to laugh at my misery huh? Daddy drive faster, I can feel the baby.
   I heard him start his car too. He insisted on staying on the line and saying sweet words to me rather than focusing on the road. Sometimes he would crack jokes and I would laugh the pain off. I looked outside the window and saw the hospital sign. Ah, finally we were here.
"Love, we are here. I will be waiting for you. I need you by my side okay, I spoke into the phone but there was no reply.

Just dead silence. I checked and he had already hanged up on me. Devil. I was wheeled into the labour room and I had mom with me. The midwife checked and said I was almost fully dilated. It was without doubt that the following three hours after that, were the most difficult three hours of my life. All the pain, tears and sorrows were forgotten immediately I heard the cry of the very first one.
"Its a girl. Alive and kicking", the midwife said.
  Now came pushing out baby number two. This one was a little stubborn and decided to stay in the womb for another hour. Well, with forceps,he/ she was pulled out after sometime.
   "This stubborn one too is a girl, congratulations".

  When they  were placed in my arms, the whole world disappeared and suddenly all I could see was just the two of them. My beautiful girls. They both had their daddy's doleful eyes. The very eyes that even though was hidden behind glasses all the time, were enough to cause butterflies to erupt in my insides. I was lost in their eyes that I didn't hear the nurse speak to me.
"Boo!  She screamed in my ear.
Can we have them?  What's their name?, she asked.
It was then I remembered Duke was supposed to be here. Where was he?  I wondered.
"Just use my name for now. We haven't decided", I said to her.
  I could hear cheers erupt in the hall way when mom went out to give them the news. They trickled in to see us, one after the other. Everyone but Duke and his family came to see us. Even Aj and Stanley did come.
When he asked if I still didn't inform Duke about the baby, I told him he was supposed to be here by now but he isn't. His family too was supposed to be here. We both thought that was weird. Stanley suggested maybe they were caught up in traffic or something came up. Whatever it was, he missed the birth of his own children. He was so going to get it from me. I can imagine the surprise on his face when he sees its not just one girl but two cute little girls. Even Stanley who likes to  act all tough wiped a tear when he saw the girls. I was certain my husband was going to weep when he sees them because he's emotional like that.