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The silence jolted Izayoi into wakefulness.
Sitting up in the reclining chair, she looked around, startled. Frantically, she checked her arms, the small space beside her in the chair, then leaned over and looked on the floor. She sprang to her feet and rushed to the crib, which she looked in, and ran her hands along the mattress, just to be sure.
The baby...where was the baby?
Izayoi stumbled blindly out of the nursery, struggling to remember what had happened in the moments before she lost the battle with sleep. Inuyasha had been nursing; she remembered that much. Her breast, still hanging out of her nursing bra, told her that much. As she adjusted it back into the bra cup and snapped the strap, she realized that she must have...dozed off. With Inuyasha in her arms? That was entirely possible. But then surely she would have awakened with her child still nestled against her breast! However, she awoke, entirely alone, and her baby nowhere to be found.
The panic that Izayoi felt rising in her chest was causing her breath to come in short, quick gasps. She ran through the house, looking for her child, looking for some sign that he was here, that he was okay, her voice stuck in her throat, unable to make any sounds, frozen from the fear of what may have happened.
It had been a difficult few months adjusting to life as a mother. Izayoi had wanted a baby, more than anything else. But she hadn’t been fully prepared for what it meant to actually be a mother. She hadn’t been prepared for how much work it would be (theoretically, she knew, but that was nothing compared to the reality). In the days after Inuyasha’s birth, Izayoi had barely eaten, barely slept. She ran a fever and nearly had to go to the hospital, for fear that she had developed an infection. But no, she was just paranoid, and unsure; she and Inuyasha were still trying to figure each other out. A hanyou child was difficult enough, but on his human nights especially, Izayoi found herself wondering just how she could mollify her screaming baby, whose senses had changed so dramatically without his ability to understand why.
How many nights had she nearly dropped him in her arms because she was so tired she could barely stand, walking and comforting him even as he screamed? She spent more hours per day with a baby attached to her breast than without. She changed diapers; she wiped drool; she changed clothes; she rocked and soothed and rocked some more. And sure, there were moments when Inuyasha would look at her with his big golden eyes, and he would giggle and gurgle and wave his hands at her, so that she couldn’t help but want to snuggle him. But sometimes those moments felt few and far between.
And holy hell. The idea of “sleep when the baby sleeps?” That was an idea in and of itself. As hard as she tried to do that, she just wasn’t tired at 11:00 in the morning, or 3:00 in the afternoon. Besides, while Inuyasha napped, she could get things done around the house: cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry. Because a baby and a household both needed care. And Izayoi was struggling to do both.
Anxiously, she got to the door to her bedroom. It was the last room for her to check; all the other rooms in the house had had open doors, so the fact that this door was closed gave her slight cause for concern. Izayoi leaned into the door and listened, her ear on the wood, but all was quiet there, too.
She decided to take a chance, and softly opened the door, to peer inside.
And...Izayoi breathed a sigh of relief.
There, laying on the bed, were her husband and their son. Her husband, Toga, was on his back, resting comfortably, one hand on his stomach, the other curled around their infant son. Inuyasha lay, perfectly nestled in the crook of his father’s arm, turned on his side. One tiny chubby hand gripped at his father’s shirt; one chubby baby leg hiked up on his father’s stomach, his toes gently poking at his father’s arm. The two slept, so beautifully and peacefully, that Izayoi stopped, and leaned against the doorframe, and stared.
What a scene in front of her. The image of her husband, so tall, and strong, and handsome, and powerful, and her son, so tiny, and sweet, and vulnerable, snuggled so closely against each other, made her heart ache and her body quiver. Tears slipped from her eyes; love bloomed in her chest and swelled throughout her body.
She heard Toga snore softly, and turn his head towards Inuyasha, who let out a little breath, tugged on his father’s shirt, and nudged his father’s hand with his toe. Izayoi’s breath caught.
How could two be so quiet, so tranquil, when her own heart was such a trembling mess? How could they lay there so undisturbed in their slumber, when her own slumber was so fitful? Did they not know how hard she tried, how hard she worked? Did they not know the restlessness that soared in her heart when Inuyasha was not near her? That she often awoke in the middle of the night, just to make sure he was breathing? To watch him sleep?
But also...did they know...how much she loved them? And that all she did, she did for them?
For them both?
Toga worked hard, and long hours; Izayoi knew this. She also knew that it had taken Toga some time to learn how to be a father; neither of them, in fact, had adjusted well to being parents. They’d been on their own for too long; they’d been used to it just being the two of them. There had been tears; there had been fights; there had been times she wasn’t sure they were going to make it.
Because raising a baby? It was hard, harder than anyone could have prepared them for. It was hard on their wallets; it was hard on their sleep; it was hard on their lives.
Transitioning from a couple to a family? Understanding the concept of family? Of going from being able to come and go as they pleased, to being trapped in the house all hours of the day (Izayoi, anyway), at the mercy of a tiny, adorable tyrant? Hard.
All of it. Hard.
But now, when Izayoi gazed at the little image of her husband, and her son, cuddled together on their bed, their breathing easy and deep, their visages so alike in both appearance and nature, Izayoi felt all the challenges of the past few months fade away. She felt the tiredness, the bone-deep exhaustion, yes, but it was also being tempered by something else.
Love.
Deep, inexplicable love.
Love for her husband; love for her child; love for her family.
Izayoi sighed, and she knew. It was the moments like this that made her entire body flush with warmth. That made her remember what it meant to be a mom, to be a family. That made her remember that, no matter how terrible the days were: no matter how many times Inuyasha pooped on her, threw up on her, scratched her with his little claws...no matter how tired she was, or how she felt about herself, or her body, not being what she wanted them to be. No matter how much she wanted to scream herself when Inuyasha was fussy for hours and refused to be mollified, or how much she wished it was her leaving for work every day, and not Toga….
These moments, like the one she was spying right then…
These are the moments to hold onto.
These are the moments that matter. In the middle of all the chaos and exhaustion.
These are the moments that are precious.
Izayoi allowed herself to gaze at the loving, hushed, reverential scene before her a bit longer, taking in the way that Inuyasha’s little ears twitched in her direction, even though she knew he slumbered peacefully. She took in the way her husband’s countenance remained fixed on their child, ready to detect any small shift in his breathing, his movements...anything that might signal a problem. Izayoi smiled softly, and made to leave the bedroom, to let them continue to sleep.
“Are you going somewhere, love?” came the voice of her husband, soft and rough with sleep.
Izayoi turned, and saw one golden eye open and peeking at her.
“I couldn’t find Inuyasha,” she said quietly, dumbly, as though she could possibly lose their child.
Toga emitted a low chuckle. “You were asleep,” he replied, “and he was fussy, so I brought him in here to calm him down. I guess we all were exhausted.” He tickled Inuyasha’s toes for a moment, then held out his hand to his wife. “Why don’t you come join us?” he asked. “I’m sure that we’ll all sleep better when we’re together.”
Izayoi smiled, and crossed over the threshold into the bedroom. She sat on the side of the bed; when Toga moved his arm from around their child, Izayoi laid down beside him, and Toga rested his arm around them both. Izayoi snuggled her son from the other side, and Inuyasha rolled into her breasts, where he rested his head against his new soft pillows. Izayoi’s face flushed, and as she reached out to touch her son, he lifted his fingers to grip her own.
“See?” Toga said softly. “He knows you’re here, and that we’re together.”
“As a family,” Izayoi whispered. “As we should be.”
The family drifted back off to sleep, enjoying the ultimate moment of parenthood when it is time to slow down, relax, and dream of the present, and of the future—a future where they would continue to build their lives.
Together.