Chapter 29 #2
Finally, the nurses bring our children to us, each baby swaddled in soft blankets and wearing tiny knit caps. Yarik holds our son and one daughter while a nurse helps me cradle the other daughter against my chest.
“Are you crying?” I ask Yarik, noting the tears on his face as he looks down at our children.
He doesn’t even try to deny it. “This is the only legacy I’ll ever care about.”
“It’s okay to cry.” I’m crying too, overwhelmed by love for these tiny humans we created together. “They’re so beautiful.”
Our son has dark hair like Yarik and serious eyes that seem to take in everything around him. One daughter has lighter hair and delicate features, while the other looks like a perfect blend of both of us.
“What should we call them?” he asks softly, adjusting his hold on the babies so they’re both comfortable.
We discussed names for months but never made final decisions. Now, looking at our children for the first time, the choices feel obvious. “Mikhail,” I say, looking at our son. “After your father.”
Yarik’s eyes fill with fresh tears at the suggestion. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure, and Elena for your mother.” I touch the cheek of the daughter in my arms. “This little one can be Katrina, after my mother Katherine.”
“Mikhail, Elena, and Katrina Barinov.” Yarik tests the names, his voice full of wonder. “Our family.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but they need to go to the NICU now,” says the doctor, looking regretful. “If they continue to do as well as they are at the moment, I don’t anticipate they’ll be with us more than two or three weeks.”
I sniffle as two nurses collect the babies, and a third positions each in an incubator.
Yarik goes with them to the NICU while Dr. Ranick returns to the afterwork following birth.
Three weeks in the NICU sounds like a lot, but it’s better than the six weeks we’d been preparing ourselves to endure.
“Hold on, little ones,” I whisper, longing to hold them again already.
Hours later, after my own stint in recovery, Yarik wheels me in a wheelchair into the NICU.
We go through the stages to sterilize ourselves before finally entering a NICU room with soft lighting and comfortable chairs for visitors.
All the babies are inside this room, arranged in a loose triangle.
We already have visitors, and they seem like they’ve been here for a while.
Nina sits in the corner, holding Elena while Valentin stands awkwardly by the window, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but somehow unable to leave. “You can hold her, you know,” I tell Valentin, noting how his gaze keeps drifting to the baby in Nina’s arms. “She won’t break.”
“I don’t know anything about babies.” He clasps his hands behind his back, maintaining his professional distance even in this intimate moment.
“None of us knew anything about babies six hours ago,” Yarik says as he gently takes Mikhail from the incubator, ensuring he’s still attached to his monitors and oxygen before carefully placing him in my arms. “But we’re all learning.
” He pulls down my gown somewhat so the baby can nuzzle against me. “Skin to skin is best.”
I grin up at him. “Look at you, already a NICU nurse.”
He flushes but grins. “I like to know everything about a situation.”
I chuckle as Nina convinces Valentin to hold Elena.
“After all, you went through all the process to get into the NICU, so why waste that gorgeous blue gown,” she teases, making him frown at her, but he sits down in the chair by Elena’s incubator and takes the baby, though without skin-to-skin contact.
That would probably push him too far. I watch in amazement as the man who’s spent his entire adult life managing violence and criminal enterprises becomes completely entranced by a four-pound baby girl.
“She’s so small,” he says, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “How does something this small survive?”
“Very carefully, with lots of help.” I pause as Mikhail shifts slightly, letting out a small sigh. “You’re going to be Uncle Valentin, whether you like it or not.”
Yarik takes the seat by Katrina’s incubator and calls for a nurse to help hold her.
She has more monitoring, wires, and an extra IV, since she’s our smallest at three-pounds-two-ounces, and is showing some difficulty her siblings aren’t.
I worry about her, but she settles comfortably against him and seems content.
After an hour, the nurse returns with the reminder the babies need rest, and I need to pump, since they can’t nurse yet.
Valentin pales at that and hastily departs, having returned Elena to Nina a while ago.
Elena follows him a bit later, and the nurse wheels in a hospital pump for me so I can remain with the babies while pumping.
“Just don’t overdo it,” she says kindly to me. “You’re recovering too, Mama.”
When the nurse leave, we’re alone with our children.
The pump whooshes rhythmically in the background, along with the quiet symphony of the machines monitoring and supporting our babies.
“I can’t believe they’re really here,” I whisper, afraid to speak too loudly and wake them.
“After everything we’ve been through, after all the fear and uncertainty, we actually made it. ”
“We made it.” Yarik leans over to kiss me gently, careful not to disturb the babies. “We have everything we could possibly want.”
“I love you,” I say, meaning it with every fiber of my being.
“I love you too. All of you.” He looks around at our children in their incubators, his expression full of wonder. “This is just the beginning.”
As if on cue, Mikhail opens his eyes and looks directly at his father with the serious expression he’s maintained since birth. Yarik smiles, and for just a moment, our son’s face relaxes into what might be the beginning of a smile behind the plastic separating him from us.
“He knows you,” I say, watching the connection form between father and son.
“We all know each other because we’re family.”
The word fills me with warmth and contentment I’ve never experienced before.
Family. After years of running and hiding, after months of uncertainty and fear, I finally have the thing I’ve wanted most, which is a home built on love rather than obligation, children who will grow up safe and cherished, and a man who chose us over everything else he could have had.