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The nurse weighs our crying baby as I hold my sobbing wife, the tears flowing from her eyes mixing with mine. “I’m so fucking proud of you, Mrs. Jones,” I whisper into her ear.

The nurse wraps and cleans our baby, and then I catch a glimpse that it’s our boy, and a huge lump forms in my throat.

“It’s our boy,” I whisper.

“Congratulations, Mommy and Daddy.” Bringing him around, the nurse places him on Kate’s chest. She looks down at the jersey underneath her gown. “I know you wanted to keep it on for the birth, but it would be ideal for you to have skin-to-skin contact. This helps calm the baby and increase your bond.”

“I can take him for a second,” I say, begging for a hold as Kate sits up and the nurse helps remove my jersey.

This is the only time I’ll ever be okay with her taking off my jersey for another man.

Holding my boy in my arms, I look over at Kate. I want to tell her his name, but I also want to wait for one last thing.

He smells like perfection.

Setting him on his mommy, they look like pure perfection, too, as I take in the most incredible sight of my life.

“I think you have competition,” she whispers to me, a look of awe in her eyes at our boy.

“The only time I’ll ever share my girl.”

Kate’s face twists again. “I think I’m contracting.”

Excitement swirls in my stomach.

She’s coming.

The nurse helps Kate by taking our boy and putting him in his bassinet. He is wrapped up in a baby blue blanket and matching knitted toque.

I’ll dress him later, and fuck, I can’t wait to change his first diaper.

Our daughter arrives with relative ease compared to the first birth, but Kate looks absolutely spent as she’s placed onto her chest.

“Do you want your baby boy too?” I ask her.

She nods, tears streaming down her face and onto her chest. “Yes.”

The way she holds and nurtures them. Like a fucking duck to water. Kate was made to be a mom, and by the look on her face, as she follows the nurse's instructions for breastfeeding, I know she feels it, too.

With the room quiet, I lie on the bed next to her. It’s a tight squeeze, but I don’t want a single inch between my family and me.

Not now, not ever.

“There’s a few people hovering outside, and I think they might be desperate to meet…” The nurse trails off, realizing we’ve not provided names yet.

I wave my hand towards me and make sure Kate is covered properly while she continues to feed like a fucking pro.

“I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to do this.” She looks down at her chest.

“Why? It’s great that you can, but it really doesn’t matter how anything plays out, you know?”

“It doesn’t?”

I shake my head. “No. I want you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

Kissing the side of her jaw, I stare at her in wonderment. “That you will never put any pressure on yourself to meetthe expectations of others, starting with the way you feed our babies.”