I get really dizzy.
Have to step back, walk around the room until a nurse tells me to sit the fuck down.
So I do. On the floor.
And then I get up and the nurse puts a chair for me in front of Steph as the epidural team comes in and helps her onto her side, so she’s curled up into a C, her spine to them.
I see the needles. One to numb the area, the other hollow tube to go into her spine.
Into. Her. Spine.
And I nearly faint.
Stay strong, be strong for her.
Those words repeat over and over in my head.
Steph squeezes my hand and stares so intently at me and I can only stare back in horror as the needle goes in and she yelps, her breath this metallic, chemical smell. When the medicine goes in, threaded into her spine, her legs jolt like they’re hit with electricity.
And that’s when it happens.
The moment she starts to relax is the moment I let go.
“He’s about to faint,” the nurse says dryly and before I can even fathom they’re talking about me, I’m letting go of Steph’s hand and tilting off the chair.
I don’t even feel the floor hit.
Next thing I know I’m out in the hallway and slumped over a chair. Bram is giving me orange juice and Nicola is pressing a cold cloth to my head.
“What happened?” I ask groggy, blinking at the fluorescent lights and feeling like I’m coming out of an epically long nap.
“Well, you have a baby girl,” Nicola says with a big grin. “So that’s something. Also, you peed yourself.”
“What?!”
It turns out that I was out for a while, coming in and out of consciousness, while Steph gave birth. Luckily, Steph’s mother and father were in there at the time and were able to provide the support she needed. Also I pissed my pants when I fainted, but we don’t need to talk about that.
I feel like a total wanker for feeling so weak and fucking fainting while my wife was in bloody agony, but at the same time…
I’m a fucking dad!
And the moment I step into that delivery room and see the tiny pink baby, so impossibly beautiful, snuggled in her exhausted but deliriously happy mum’s arms, I know that everything in my life was leading up to this moment. This right here, all of this, is what life is all about, what it’s always been about. And I never knew it until now.
I want to say I’m sorry for bloody fainting, for not being there, for pissing myself, but the words don’t come out. I don’t want to be sorry for anything regarding this. So I coo, “Hiiiiii,” to the baby as I come over to Steph’s side and I am utterly in love.
I don’t really have any other words than that. For the next ten minutes, I’m just operating on pure joy, pure feeling. No thoughts, no worries, nothing but feeling incomparable love, the kind that you know will consume you until your dying day. I feel it both for Steph and for the baby.
“True,” I whisper, my lips pressed against Steph’s forehead, my eyes glued to our daughter.
“What?” Steph asks softly.
“True,” I say. “True McGregor. That should be her name. You’d said we would know the name the minute we met her. I think she’s True.”
“True,” Steph repeats slowly, smiling broadly. “I like that. She’s True.”
True like my love for both of them.
And it rhymes with my Baby Blue.
“Welcome to the family, True McGregor,” I whisper to her, knowing I’ll never stop feeling this enchanted. “I’m your dad. This is your mum. You’re our wee daughter. We’re going to have a life of adventures together, the three of us. Does that sound good to you?”
True makes a little sound in response and I know she’s signed on for the adventure.
THE END
A Wedding Set in the Stars—A Mateo & Vera Story
“On the scale of one to ten, how much do you need to puke?”
I give my brother Josh the side-eye while his girlfriend Gemma takes a break from fiddling with my hair to punch him on the shoulder. She gives one hell of a punch, too.
“Josh,” Gemma chides him. “Does she look nervous to you?”
I give Josh my biggest smile, hoping I’m not getting raspberry lipstick across my teeth. “I’m not nervous. I’m not going to puke. Everything’s fine.”
And it’s mostly true. Today is the happiest day of my life – at least it’s supposed to be. I’m marrying the love of my life, Mateo Casalles, and will be Mrs. Casalles in about an hour, something I’ve dreamed of for a long time.
But despite the fact that I’m marrying the man of my dreams and, so far, everything is going pretty smoothly considering our wedding is on location in the middle of nowhere, I do have sharp anxiety shredding through me.
It’s not that I have any doubts about Mateo. Not in the slightest. We’ve been through so much together that I know deep within me that he is the man for me. My person. My tribe. My soulmate.
I do have doubts about the media circus that this wedding is causing, as well as the fact that my mother and sister are here, two thorns in my side who have never approved of Mateo. I know it’s because of how we met (he was married at the time), I know it’s because I’m twenty-five and he’s forty. It just doesn’t seem to matter how good of a man he is and how well he treats me, that we’re both madly in love with each other, they still can’t seem to accept him.
To be honest, I’m surprised that they’re even here. Mercedes, my sister, brought her dipshit husband with her, while mom came by herself. My father was supposed to come (they divorced a long time ago) but work came up. I have a feeling that the
