Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 95147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
She didn’t want me to see her like that; Nat thought she had dibs because of their many years of friendship, and mom and my sisters argued family. I bit into my apple and grinned at them as I crushed their dreams, then walked away, leaving them calling me names.
I don’t regret that decision, but damn, this shit is for the birds. Since when do people give birth in bathtubs? What if ours wasn’t big enough? What if the kid drowned with his first breath? That question got me eye rolls from my beloved wife, and her midwife laughed at me as she explained things to me as if I were ten. I’m gonna cancel every payment I ever made to this quack as soon as we get out of here.
“That’s it, push, push.” We were back in business again. I knew because Steph was on a mission once again to break every bone in my hand. “Come on, dad, do you want to see your baby being born?”
“I’m good.” The fuck I’m going down there; I had a good enough view from where I stood. I was going to get into the tub so I could sit behind her and hold her until they told me about the blood and other shit, and I noped the fuck out of that idea.
My knees were about to give out from kneeling here for so long, but it was nothing compared to what she was going through. Now, I’ve been distracting myself with my thoughts of what the last few months of our lives had been like, but when I heard the first little sound from my kid that seemed to come out of nowhere, it was like the world had changed.
In the blink of an eye, everything felt different. There was a bolder in my chest, and I lost my vision for a minute. It took me that long to realize that I was crying, and when the midwife handed my wife our son, I almost lost it. He was so tiny, so vulnerable, and all my new responsibilities hit me at once. For the rest of my life, this little being was going to need me. Fuck me!
“Good job Stephanie, you did so well.” I didn’t hear most of what the midwife was saying because of the ringing in my ears, but I did hear the scream Steph let out and saw the flurry of movement as midwife number two took the baby back while the other one went back to the other end of the tub and told Steph to push again.
I feel bad for my kid; he’s going to grow up without a dad because I’m going to end these two right here and now. It was obvious that something was wrong from the way they were acting, but before I could voice my displeasure and grab my kid from the arms of midwife number two, there was another little being falling into the hands of midwife one.
I was stunned, speechless. “Two?” That didn’t sound like me, but I felt the word leave my lungs. I pointed at the kid. “This one’s missing something.” The three of them laughed it up as I stood there like a hump, having lost all thought from my head.
Steph was laughing and crying at the same time as I handed our newly cleaned-up son back to her while she passed our daughter off to be taken care of as well. What the hell is she laughing about? I distinctly remember telling her no girls. The fuck, they played me. I glared at the midwife, who never mentioned two babies being in there, and my wife, the sneak, who was cooing like a nut.
“How is it two? How come you didn’t tell me?” I glared at the midwife again.
“We didn’t know; she was hidden.” Just then, midwife number two passed me my daughter, and I got trapped before I caught myself. Her eyes, my eyes, looked right into mine; fuck…me. So, this is how they do it, how women talk men into having more than one of these things, how they get men to forget the hell that was the first one.
“Hello, baby girl, I’m your daddy.” Plunk, that’s the sound of my heart falling at her little feet.
“Mace, for crying out loud, hand me, my granddaughter.” My mom, the baby thief, had parked her ass in my house for the past two weeks under the guise of helping my wife. Every day I walked in the door, I had to fight her and the other gaggle of women who didn’t have anything better to do than hang around my place all day just to hold my kids.
My little princess cooed and smacked her lips as she looked up at me while her mom fed her brother, who seemed to always be on the tit, a chip off the old block. The past two weeks have been both amazing and terrifying as hell. Because no one knew my daughter was hiding in there, we thought we might have to take the babies to the hospital after the birth, but the midwives took care of monitoring everything that first day before giving us the all-clear.