We found out on the day of HRM’s first ultrasound. At one point, the nurse slowed her probing movements. Then she stopped briefly and seemed to check more attentively once again. Laughing softly, she told us there was not one but two hearts beating inside the womb.
That moment in time, our looks of joy and disbelief, is etched into my heart forever.
Against all odds, HRM, forty years old at the time, carried the boys almost to full term.
The first few hours after they were born turned into a day and a night. Then two.
They were finally here, unnamed yet, but of this world. We were just meeting them, just getting to know them. And in a way, we were being reborn as well. It was unreal to feel our old selves begin to fall away, making room for the parents we were about to become.
I remember the preciousness of sleep, how few and far between the hours of rest.
The wonder of picking up a crying baby and placing him against my chest until he quieted down, all the while the edges of the room around us softening and growing dimmer, almost to the point of vanishing.
Luca and Olin. Olin and Luca. Impossible to think of you without one another.
Know that my heart is yours
and that I’ve never been happier than in the six years since we first saw your faces.
