Laid in bed with the sound of birds twittering away outside the bedroom window in the trees of the garden, I sighed to myself with a smile as I gradually opened my eyes to look up at the ceiling. I found myself tracing patterns in the alcove as I counted down from five to myself.
Five.
There were no other sounds to be heard in the whole entire house apart from the sound of the birds’ song.
Four.
In the distance you could hear the sound of little footsteps that gradually got louder and louder, the closer that they got.
Three.
Whispering was now happening outside the door of mine and George’s bedroom.
Two.
The whispering was silenced and the footsteps got closer until they were right beneath the bedroom door.
One.
“Mummy!”
“Mummy, can we go to the beach today?”
“Mummy! Katy keeps saying that we’re annoying her.”
“Mummy! When will we be able to go out?”
“Mummy! How come Katy is allowed out to her friend’s house for the day but we’re not allowed?”
“Mummy!”
“Mummy, are you ignoring us? Mummy?”
I sat up, propping my head up from the pillows and smiled at my son and daughter that were stood waiting patiently for a response from me from the bottom of the bed. Smiling at them, I patted the bed space beside me and within no time at all, both of them jumped onto the bed and snuggled right up to me - one either side.
“Right, you two. A few more minutes in bed and then we can get up,” I smiled. “Deal?”
“Deal,” they both chorused in unison as they both burrowed their heads onto my pillow and closed their eyes for a little while longer.
“Look at you lot,” George grinned, carrying two cups of coffee into the bedroom in his dressing gown that the kids had all got him for the previous Christmas. “All as snug as bugs in rugs.”
“Shh, we’re having a few more minutes in bed,” I grinned, making the most of the silence.
“Suits me,” George grinned as he clambered into bed beside us.
*
The whirring sound of the ambulance’s siren sounded constantly outside the ambulance as I sat on the bed, cradling my baby bump in tears. I didn’t know what to think. Everything was going around my brain at the speed of light that everything just seemed to come out as a blur. I didn’t know what was going on.
George was sat beside me, holding onto my hand tightly as the ambulance sped through all the traffic. A paramedic was in the back with us, monitoring my heart rate and checking my blood pressure - both which were sky high, which wasn’t really surprising. I felt so lost. All I could think about was my babies.
*
Christmas carols were playing in the background as the school hall filled up with proud parents all waiting for their children’s Christmas play to begin. George and I snaked our way across the row that our tickets had been assigned to and Katy followed along behind us, tapping away at her phone as she texted her latest boyfriend, Craig.
“Katy, would you please record it when they come on?” George asked, handing his phone to Katy, who reluctantly took it.
“Why?” Katy groaned in her usual teenage attitude. “All you do is store them in a folder on your laptop and you never watch them. It’s a waste of time and storage and phone battery.”
“Do as your dad says,” I instructed.
“But..”
“We’ll play them back for you all when you’re eighteen so you can cringe at how much you’ve changed,” George grinned. “Don’t worry, Katy. All your videos are saved securely on my laptop and all waiting for you to turn eighteen in four years.”
“Remember this song?” I smiled to Katy as she shoved her phone into her pocket and decided to actually participate in the family discussion for once. “You used to dance all about the lounge with your pink fairy wings on when you were three years old. We used to put this song on when the twins wouldn’t stop crying so you’d be occupied so we could deal with them.”
“Mum,” Katy paused. “Can you drive me and Craig to the cinema tomorrow night? We wanna see that new movie and his parents said ‘no’.”
“Fine,” I reluctantly groaned, starting to sound like my teenage daughter. “What time?”
“Thanks mum,” Katy beamed, grabbing her phone back from the pocket which she only placed it in just a few seconds before. “You’re the best.”
*
The doctor’s room was so silent as George and I sat on the hospital bed beside each other, waiting for something to happen. The doctor had given me a quick examination and disappeared off without saying a word. All I wanted to know was if the babies were okay - if they were going to survive. I wasn’t a doctor and I had no medical expertise but I knew bleeding wasn’t a good sign. The bleeding had seemed to get heavier and heavier in the ambulance but now there was nothing but bloody pyjamas left behind as evidence.
“Right, Sammy. I know this isn’t going to be easy to hear but we’re going to need to take you in for surgery,” the doctor explained as he reentered the room, shutting the door behind him. “You can say ‘no’ to the surgery but there is a chance you will miscarry both the babies if we don’t take you into theatre. It seems like, although the trauma wasn’t directly at your bump, both the babies have suffered damage and we’re going to have to operate.”
“If you operate, is there a chance they’ll survive?” I asked.
The doctor looked at me with a face that was almost impossible to read. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that the surgery will mean they will both live, but there’s a higher chance they will survive with the surgery than if we do nothing at all.”
“Could they die?” I asked. “Could they die in the surgery?”
“We’ll do everything within our power to make sure that doesn’t happen,” the doctor paused. “I know it’s a difficult decision, Sammy. But the sooner you make it, the sooner we can get you into the theatre and the better chance your babies have.”
Without even consulting George, I nodded. “Where do I sign?”
*
Readjusting the tie that was around his neck and straightening it so it fell perfectly over his pressed shirt, I couldn’t have been more prouder of my little boy at his graduation ceremony from university. My little boy. That little baby I held in my hands for the first time twenty-three years ago. So much had happened in that time but I had grown to love him more than anything else in the entire world. All three of my kids were my world. And here he was, about to receive his first class degree in medicine. The whole world was his oyster. All his dreams were reachable. He was going to save the world, just like he saved mine.
“I’m so proud of you,” I gushed, smiling at him as he scoffed at my tears. “I know it’s a very ‘mum’ thing to say and I say it to you all the time but I really mean it. You’ve made me the proudest I could ever be.” I paused as I looked at my two girls who were sat beside where I was stood on the sofa in the graduation hall’s lobby. “All three of you have.”
“Mum, stop blubbering,” Katy joked, putting her hand on my hand in a supportive manner. “We’re still your babies.”
“I know you are,” I grinned. “You always will be. Even after I’m gone and you yourselves are dribbling in a rocking chair at the local nursing home, you’ll still be my babies. You’ll still be those three helpless babies who I held the moment you were all born and cradled you until the nurse had to prise you all from my exhausted fingers so I could get some rest. I love you all more and more each and every day.”
“Dad. Mum’s going to blubber through the ceremony.”
*
The feeling of tenderness and soreness from the operation was nothing in comparison to the heartache I was going through. I knew something wasn’t right. I could feel it in my heart. The doctors wouldn’t tell me anything yet. George was sat silently beside my bed and even he wouldn’t tell me anything. He kept saying he didn’t know what was going on, but I knew he knew something. The way he looked down at the floor with an impassive stare told me differently to what he was saying himself.
Every time the doctor or nurse would rush past the ward in the hospital corridor outside, I’d shout after them with every bit of energy I had left in my body but it was no use. Nobody could tell us anything. I had never been so in the dark before of anything. I hated it.
*
Gently wiping away the tear that was trickling down my cheek, George chuckled at me as he looked down at me in his brand new suit. He looked ever so handsome. A few wrinkles had appeared on his still gorgeous face but he still looked the same way he did on our wedding day nearly thirty years ago to the day. His hand graced my cheek as he wrapped his other arm around me, pulling me in closer for a cuddle.
“You’re such a softie,” he grinned, kissing my forehead softly.
“Can you blame me?” I sobbed. “Our youngest daughter is getting married. Married, can you believe that? It’s not just some high school fling that’ll end in heartbreak because he held hands with another girl at the school disco. She’s getting married and soon enough they’ll be having kids and their kids will be having kids and then their kids will be having kids.. They’re all grown up now, George. They won’t need us for much longer.”
“Sammy, they will always need us,” George smiled. “You still need your mum, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Exactly,” George insisted. “They will always need us, Sammy. Parenthood is for life - not just until they’re married off to somebody else.”
*
Sat staring into space in the hospital bed, I knew something wasn’t right. Placing my hand onto my stomach, I looked down and sighed. Something just wasn’t the same. The only thing keeping me company as I was alone in the hospital room was my thoughts. I couldn’t help but smile endlessly at the images of the twins growing up. Regardless of the fact we had already been told that we were expecting one girl and one boy, I had already decided that they were gonna have matching outfits for every day until they turned 18 - maybe not both in dresses, unless they both wanted to, but coordinating patterns and colours for definite. No matter what they decided to do in life, I would love them both so much. Them two, Katy and George were my world. Nothing could take that away from me. Nobody could take that away from me.
Well, that’s what I thought until the doctor returned back to the room and looked at me with an emotionless look on his face before flicking through the scan photos he had in his medical folder - presumably my medical record.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
“Are they okay?” George asked.
“Please, just tell us. Are our babies okay?” I pleaded.
The doctor took a sympathetic look at me and it was in that moment that I knew they weren’t okay.
“I’m so sorry,” the doctor paused. “I’m sorry. We did everything we could but one of the babies’ weren’t strong enough and didn’t make it.”
My heart sunk. It didn’t even sink. It just broke. George grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed it as tightly as possible but I pulled my hand from his grip. I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t want to be held. I didn’t want to be told everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t going to be okay. This was the second time that we had lost something so special to us. Why was it happening to us again? After everything we had been through with the first baby, why now? Why again? Why was I so happy just hours before but now my entire world had crumbled around me? I wasn’t sad. I was angry. I was so angry at the world.