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Ashley would like to say that she'd had no idea how long she'd been able to sleep before the baby monitor came to life with a crackling hiss—the soft wails of her not quite three-month old daughter sounding just slightly distorted through the ever present light static—but that would have been a dirty, rotten lie. She knew intrinsically that she had been able to manage a full three hours and twenty-seven minutes of sleep, just as she knew without looking that the brilliant red numbers of the digital clock behind her would read 2:56 AM to the dot.
If asked for any one singular thing that either her or Chris could say about their baby girl, it was that she was consistent. Always needed to be fed twice during the night: once at 2:56 and again at 5:24, where she then allowed her parents a couple more hours of sleep before waking and ready for the day at 7:30 sharp. She would then take her first nap at two minutes past ten, waking up just in time for lunch at quarter after one. After staying awake for another two hours, she would crash for her second nap just shy of three o'clock for a midday feeding, before going down for her third (and final) nap of the day just as Chris and Ashley would be sitting down for supper. Once seven hit she was ready and demanding supper of her own until declaring bedtime at the exact time of 10:10. She ran her own day like clockwork and was punctual to a fault, and clearly expected the same of her own parents.
(Considering that Chris was almost always running late to just about everything, and Ashley was absolutely sure that she would arrive fifteen minutes early to her own funeral, both were quite frankly mystified as to how in the world that their own flesh and blood daughter got that particular quirk.)
But even with the well ingrained knowledge of her own child's schedule, there was no way to describe the groan that Ashley made as she rolled over onto her back as anything but tired and despondent.
"I love my daughter," she mumbled blearily into the dark bedroom, "I love my daughter so much that my love for her will one day overpower my insatiable need for a good night's sleep."
Next to her in the bed, Chris gave a tired snort. "That'll make one of us at least." A rustle of blankets quickly follows as he moves to roll out of the bed entirely. "You go back to sleep Ash, it's my turn now anyway. Be back in a few."
Ashley quickly sits up so she can place her hand on Chris's shoulder to hold him down before he can actually move. The plan had been that she would get up before he ever moved, but like all things in life now, it was a plan that had seemed a whole lot easier to carry out when she had come up with it around supper, and not when she had woken up with a meager three hours of sleep. And yet, it was so, so tempting to just follow his instructions and go back to sleep. "Yeah, I don't think so. Last I checked, it's apparently been 'your turn' for the past three nights now, so I get this one. I don't think that you're going to be able to help her with her current problem now anyway."
Slowly, Chris turned his head so he could look in her vague direction. With what little light drifted through from the streetlights outside the window, Ashley could tell that he had narrowed his eyes in a combination of confusion and exhaustion. "...but there's milk in the fridge?"
She fought through the cobwebs in her mind as she struggled to come up with another excuse even as she fully started to throw back the covers. "No there isn't, I forgot to pump before bed." She prayed that Chris was too tired to see through her weak and obvious lie.
With a groan, he rolled over to push his face into the pillows and Ashley let her shoulders slacken in relief even as she fought hard against the yawn that threatened to crack her entire jaw. "Fine. Just be back quick alright? Don't be too long."
She smiled as she reached for the afghan that hung over the chair in the corner. "If I'm not back in thirty minutes, assume the worst."
"Hmm. Fell victim to that sweet, sweet seduction again, got it. I’ll send reinforcements later." He punctuated his promise with a large yawn that Ashley couldn’t help but mimic, and only made the idea of burrowing back into the blankets next to him even more attractive.
But with the continued wails of their daughter filling the room reminding her just why exactly she was awake during this god awful time of night, she only gave a small laugh as she put on her slippers and bent down to give him a soft kiss on the side of his temple before slipping out the door. They both knew that he'd be lucky if he was even able to last another minute before passing back out again.
The second that Ashley was out of the warm bedroom, she tightened the afghan around her shoulders and made a brisk, if not extremely blearily, walk to their daughter's bedroom. Their apartment didn't have great heating at the best of times, and with it being the end of January the hallway may as well have been located in the arctic this late in the night. So the rush of warm air when she opened the door to the bedroom was nearly soporific in it's relief.
Without a word, Ashley shut the door behind her before any of the blessed hot air could escape and made her way to her wailing infant in the crib. Through the night light in the corner of the room, she could see small little fists poking out of the patterned blanket that Chris had swaddled Joshlynn in earlier. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight as she wailed with every ounce of strength that her small body was able to manage.
With slow, languid motions, Ashley lifted her daughter out of the crib and unwrapped the blanket so she could feel the diaper, doing her best to comfort Joshlynn's hungry cries with soft cooing and shushes as she did so (she thinks that the cries do start to quiet a little at the sound of her voice, but that could also just be the lack to sleep and wishful thinking talking). Thankfully finding the diaper still dry and empty, Ashley could only sigh as she tried to wrap the blanket back around her daughter. For a long moment, as she trapped her daughter's arms at her sides and started to tuck the blanket in around her, she considered going back to wake up Chris. He had always been much better at this than her for some reason. While it was true that Joshlynn had managed to yank her arms out of the blanket, if Ashley had been the one to do so then she would have managed to worm her entire way out in the end, screaming with all her limbs flailing and not just her fists.
Joshlynn semi-successfully swaddled once again, Ashley picked up her still wailing daughter and with a relieved sigh, collapsed into the small, padded armchair by the door as she lifted up her (Chris's) t-shirt. A short second later, she carefully jostled around her daughter until she was able successfully latch onto the nipple and was cut off mid-scream. The room now blissfully silent except for the low drone of the heater, with slow and careful movements Ashley adjusted her position in the chair until she was able to curl up just the way she liked and tightened the shawl around her shoulders as she sunk her head back against the soft, plush cushion of the chair.
Just like always, the soporific combination of the heat, late night, and the almost hypnotic sensation of a little mouth suckling at her breast for milk threatened to lull her into sleep right there and then. She hadn't been kidding when she'd told Chris to assume the worst when it came to these late night feedings. She couldn't even begin to count the number of times she had fallen asleep in this chair, only to be found by him in the morning curled up with her legs under her and Joshlynn still latched onto her breast. It was only the deadly and familiar promise of a stiff and sore neck, back, and legs for the rest of the day (if not the rest of the week) that enabled her to even fight back in the first place.
Ashley just fervently hoped that he hadn't taken any pictures of her, though it wouldn't surprise her if he did. She certainly had taken enough pictures of him every time she found him having succumbed to the same fate as she. Except, unlike her his favourite place to pass out with their daughter late at night was on the couch in the living room. He had to pass through to get to the kitchen and warm up a bottle after all, and the couch was far, far closer than the armchair in question. If he had seen her asleep in this chair a countless number of times, then she had found him countless times more. Walking into the living room and finding her husband completely zonked out on the couch, their daughter loosely but still protectively cradled in one arm with the empty bottle having rolled out his hand to the floor below, and his head fallen over the back of the couch as he let out the occasional soft snore, glasses lopsided on his face but still holding on miraculously.
And yet, the temptation was so strong to just succumb to the warmth and peacefulness of the moment that it was all she could do to stay awake. Only the desire of not falling asleep curled up in the chair but curled up against her husband's back in her own bed was just enough to barely fight the effects and not let her head drop against her chest. Struggling to find something, anything, that would keep her awake for the next half hour or so, she looked back down at her daughter's content face as she drank with her eyes closed. Softly, Ashley brushed back a small amount of the fluffy strawberry blonde hair that had fallen over Joshlynn's forehead.
"So...had a pretty busy day today, huh? Lots of exciting stuff." She did her best to whisper, not wanting to wake her sleeping daughter up even as she continued to softly thumb at her forehead. "When we put you down on your stomach earlier, I swear it was like you were seeing the world for the first time all over again. You wouldn't stop drooling either, but you're a bit like your daddy in that way I think. He drools a little in his sleep too, even though he won't admit it.
"Oh, and your uncle even came by for a visit too. I'm not sure who was happier to see him honestly, you or us. You wouldn't stop babbling at him the second he picked you up and it was the first time I had ever seen you try to fight against your three o'clock nap so you could hang out with him longer." She leaned down as if to share a secret, but was extremely careful not to accidentally jostle her daughter. "If you ask me, I even think he would have taken you with him when he left after supper if he could've. Honestly, I think you would have even gladly went with him—screaming when your daddy and I inevitably tried to stop him—if you weren't already fast asleep. So thanks for that little bit of appreciation. Always happy to know that you love your uncle far more than your own parents."
Shockingly, Joshlynn did not respond to her mother's accusation. All she did was let out some gas and continue to drink. Ashley was just happy that she hadn't felt any warmth in the crook of her elbow when it happened, the last thing she wanted to do was wake up her daughter in order to change her diaper. It would take at least another half hour or so to get her back to sleep then, and if that happened then there was no way Ashley was going to be sleeping anywhere but the armchair.
"Hey, do you think you can keep a secret for me? You have to promise never to tell your daddy this of course, I don't want him to feel guilty over something that isn't his fault." Ashley let her voice trail off, and didn't continue until she heard a small little gurgle as Joshlynn paused drinking for just a moment. It was more than likely just some more gas, but Ashley took it as consent anyways. "Thank you. Knew I could trust you."
And yet, she didn't speak right away, slowly trying to gather her thoughts together in her still half-asleep and sleep-fogged brain. "I don't think either of us ever thought this day would finally come. We hoped it would, we hoped so hard, but finding out every month when my period came that we failed again? It hurt. And then, there was that couple of week back in June, where we finally thought that it worked and we were so unbelievably happy and — " Ashley took a small shuddering breath as she squeezed her eyes closed to fight against the tears that still threatened to fall even now, she didn't think it would ever not feel like she was about to get her heart ripped out. "I don't think anything will ever hurt as much as that. I pray to God that you'll never have to experience that pain in your life.
"We didn't try again after that, not for a long time. It hurt too much constantly getting our hopes up again and again. And then one day, your daddy brought up that maybe he wasn't meant to have kids after all and we should start either looking elsewhere, or at donors, or something. But elsewhere was so expensive and we would never be able to afford it, and I didn't want a donor... I wanted him. It didn't matter if we found someone who may as well have been his twin and like him in almost every aspect, because they wouldn't have your daddy's smile or laugh or completely awful sense of humor and those were the bits of him that I loved most. Those were the things I wanted you to have. It was selfish of me, I know that. All I've done is more than likely given you the same problem you're going to have to experience much later down the line. And if you hate me for that choice I understand completely. But I didn't want anyone other than your daddy, so your mommy fought back. I begged and pleaded with him to give us one more year before finally throwing in the towel all together. Just one more year, that's all I wanted. That I know how much it hurt finding out that we failed again month after month, but that I also knew that he wanted kids just as much as I did; if not more. And he agreed. One more year, but that was it. If nothing came of it then we would start looking at other options."
Ashley was more than relieved that the wet hysterical little laugh she let out hadn't been enough to wake Joshlynn. "It's a good thing that you don't know what money even is or how it works, cause you would not believe how much we were spending on fertility tests and drugs for the both of us, praying that something would finally work. And then, April came, but my period never came with it. I waited another couple of weeks just in case, but still nothing. I had never been so scared to take a test in my life, and never so happy to have passed one with flying colours. And yet, I still didn't tell your daddy for at least another week. I didn't want a repeat of June, I knew that the news would break him if it turned out to be just another false pregnancy.
"It was the longest week of my life waiting for that doctor's appointment to finally arrive. Praying that you weren't just going to be the product of another faulty stick or chemical imbalance or whatever it was, and then the doctor told me that I was five weeks pregnant. Telling your daddy that it had finally happened—that you had finally happened—was one of the happiest days of my life."
Ashley pauses to wipe a couple of tears that had managed to fall with her shoulder. “I'm sure that I don't have to tell you exactly what those months of pregnancy were like, you were there for it all after all. I don't think I will ever forgive you for making me eat nearly that entire jar of relish by the way. Worst night of my life." She gently pokes at her daughter's nose, and can't help the small, tired huff of laughter at the reaction that follows. Joshlynn's little pink nose all scrunched up in response before relaxing it again barely a moment later. Never having paused drinking for a single second.
"But the months seemed to pass by in a flash, cause next thing I knew it was the evening before halloween. And shortly after midnight I was finally able to hold you in my arms for the very first time, so tiny that your face barely stuck out of the blankets that one of the nurses had wrapped you in after cleaning you up, and screaming your little heart out. Your daddy told me later that he had never heard a more perfect sound in his life and I have to agree with him. I already loved you more than you can possibly imagine from the very first second I found out that you actually existed, and loved you even more when I finally got to see your face: red and wrinkled as it was and you barely looking like a human. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. You were so, so perfect that it made the last two years of suffering and hopelessness more than worth it.”
Pausing once again, this time it's to ready herself for the next confession. This one even harder than the rest, cause now it was time to reveal all of her insecurities in the dark of night. The ones that she had never even confided in Chris. "Now this is the part that you have to promise to never ever tell your daddy, do you hear me? But for those first couple of months after you had been born, I was terrified. Not that I would be a good mother—though the thought of that certainly kept me up more nights than I would like—but that everyone thought that your daddy wasn't actually your daddy. Everyone knew that we had been trying for years with nothing to show for it, and I didn't want them to think that I gave up on the idea of it being him before deciding that all I wanted was to be pregnant. That it didn't matter who the father was as long as I got a baby in the end. That they thought I didn't love him enough.
"And I know that no one thought that, I do. Even if we had decided to go the donor route in the end, it would have been our choice and not theirs, and I know that. But for those first couple of months, everyone had been saying the same thing every time they saw you. That it was clear from the first moment you opened your eyes that they were mine, even if they were still as blue as your daddy's. That they could already see the hint of green starting to poke through. That that was my hair on your head, downy soft as it was. That we were likely going to need a library for all the books you're going to read when you get older. That it was already clear that you were quick as a whip and going to be just as smart as your mommy. And it scared me. If there was so much of me in you, then where was your daddy? Did they already think that there was nothing of him to find so they didn't even bother to look?
"I hated it. I hated every second of it and I wanted to scream that it was so obvious that you were his. How could they not see him in you when it was so obvious to me? From the first moment you smiled at us, it was so clear even with that toothless grin that it was your daddy's smile on your little face. That this nose—" Ashley softly ran a finger down her daughter's nose and across the small little bump at the bridge of it "—is his. Even though your daddy told me that there was no way you would be able to inherit it from him no matter how much I loved it. That the little mole on your chest is an exact replica of his own, down to the very same spot. And then, today..." Ashley had to take a breath to stop from bursting out into the relieved sobs she had managed to fight off earlier, though she did nothing to fight against the wide, beaming grin on her face. "And then today you laughed for the very first time. Your daddy picked you up after changing your diaper and blew a big old raspberry on your stomach, and you just started giggling. I've never seen him look so proud before, and he kept doing it over and over again as you kept shrieking louder and louder just so he could hear it. And it was all I could do to keep from bursting out into tears, because that little laugh was his. As high-pitched and bubbly as it was, it was almost the exact same laugh of his that I fell in love with years ago. And you had it.
"Something finally clicked for me. The only person that needed to be told that you were your daddy's little girl, was me. And hearing that sparkling little laugh was the last bit of proof I needed to convince me of it. To convince me that this was really happening. That somehow, despite all the odds, we finally have a baby girl who is perfect in every little way because she's ours."
It takes Ashley longer than she would like to know that the sensation she's feeling against her breast now isn't the firm tug of sucking, but the soft, warm breaths of Joshlynn having fallen back asleep at last and done with her first midnight meal. With slow and careful movement, she slowly gets up from the chair and shifts her daughter so she's being held upright with her head tucked safely into the crook of her mother's neck and shoulder. Ashley doesn't move for a moment, letting her own head tuck against Joshlynn's so she could hear the slow, measured breaths of her daughter.
Eventually, she starts to make her way slowly to the crib at the other end of the room, though she allows herself a couple more seconds to find solace in her daughter's breathing before giving a soft kiss on her little forehead. Right in the spot where there's a soft little downy curl of strawberry-blonde hair. "I love you," Ashley whispers with her lips still gently pressed on her forehead, "I love you so, so much and you made every second of the last two years worth it."
Ashley carefully places Joshlynn into her crib and with one last whisper of "goodnight sweetheart, I love you", she starts to make her way back to her own bedroom. Completely exhausted—not just physically and mentally, but now emotionally as well—she arrives into her bedroom and only vaguely makes out the form of Chris curled up under the blankets facing her side of the bed before she's collapsed onto it next to him. He doesn't move though, and she lets out a sigh of relief that she hadn't managed to wake him up.
Ashley tiredly kicks off the slippers and shrugs the afghan from around her shoulders to the floor with a muffled whine into her pillow. She knows that she'll regret not putting the afghan back in it's usual spot on the chair when she has to wake up to feed Joshlynn again in a short two hours (the lie that she had told Chris about the milk earlier meant that she had to be the one to wake up then), but she was too relieved to be back in her bed to really care right now. Already dreaming about falling asleep curled up next to her husband's body under the thick and blessedly warm pile of blankets, she slowly and languidly makes her way back under the covers.
She doesn't get the chance to roll over and face Chris before he's already pulled her against him with his arm tight around her waist and his face buried into her hair. Ashley thinks it's an unconscious move on his part, dead asleep but eager to hold her, until she catches a muffled sniff and the wet sensation of tears on the back of her neck. Immediately, sleep is the last thing on her mind anymore.
"Chris? Are you okay?" She wants to turn over and face him, but his firm hold on her waist prevents her from moving.
He doesn't respond right away, giving one more final sniffle, before he says in a wet voice, "She won't hate you, it's impossible to hate you."
There's a moment where Ashley doesn't understand what he's talking about, but then she catches sight of the baby monitor on top of the dresser and wants to sink right through the mattress in embarrassment. She had entirely forgotten about the baby monitor. Forgot that despite the ever present static that always came to life when the electronic did, that the thing was still sensitive enough to pick up even the lightest sound and transmit it. The first night that they had moved Joshlynn to the room just down the hall and out of theirs, they hadn't been able to fall asleep for hours as they just listened to the sound of their daughter breathing, a part of them still disbelieving that she was actually real. Of course the thing would have been able to pick up her whispered one-sided conversation.
"How much of that did you hear?" Ashley weakly whimpers mortified from behind her hands pressed to her face, still trying to will herself to become one with the mattress.
This time, Chris didn't sniffle but he did huff a tired laugh. "From around the point of you accusing our best friend of trying to kidnap our baby I think."
Oh god. He'd heard everything. Every little insecurity she'd never shared with him—never wanted to share with him honestly. The ones that she had needed to get off her chest for months now and thought would be safe admitting only to her not quite three-month old daughter. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Ash, why should you be sorry? There is absolutely nothing that you need to be sorry for." Chris's arm tightens around her waist for just a moment and he buries his nose into her hair deeper than ever, probably hoping to muffle his next words enough that she wouldn't be able to catch them. It hadn't worked in the slightest. "If anyone needs to apologize it should be me for making you go through all that."
That confession sends a small shard of ice right into her heart. Ashley wants to do nothing more than roll over and take Chris's face right into her hands, but his tight hold on her prevents that. So she settles for placing her hand over his own and tangling her fingers through his as she squeezes tight. "You didn't make me go through anything Chris. Everything that we went through I wanted so much it hurt. If I hadn't wanted any of it then I never would have talked you into giving it another go. I just would have agreed to look at any of the other options right away. You know that, I know you do."
With Ashley's hand overtop of Chris's, she does her best to try and remove the weight of him from off her waist, wanting to do nothing more than roll over and face him. She needs to look him straight in the eyes right now, even if she wouldn't be able to clearly see him in the dark. While he does take the hint, it's not the one she was trying to get across. He removes his hand and backs off, but it's with an ashamed and horrified apology. He clearly thinks that him holding her was the last thing she wanted when it was so far from the truth it wasn't even funny.
That being said, the moment he backs off even a little she's rolling over and holding his face in her hands, her thumbs doing the best that she can to wipe away any of the tears that still may be falling. She pushes her front right against his so that their faces are the only things not touching right now, though she knows that it won't be that way for much longer. "It was worth it, all the pain and the waiting was worth it. Do..." the fear comes on to her so quickly that it leaves her next words small and quiet, "do you not think it worth it?"
If the hands that abruptly appeared back onto her waist to hold her there against him wasn't indicative of how totally wrong she was, then his sharp, horrified gasp easily would have been. "Of course it was worth it Ash. She was more than worth it. I would gladly go through all of it again if it meant having her in our lives. I just don't want to put you through it again."
Ashley keeps up the soothing brushing of her thumbs against his cheeks. "But we are going to go through it again, right? I mean, that's what we both agreed on, isn't it? We both knew from the very second that we held her in our arms that she wouldn't be our only one."
"Are you sure?" Chris whispered to her. "We don't have to, you know. We can start looking at other options—" he cuts himself off at the fierce shake of her head, especially when she finally places her forehead against his.
"I will wait another two years if we have to. I will gladly wait three years. Or five. Even ten years if that's what it takes for us to have another baby. It will be more than worth it. And, well, you heard me." She gives him a small, fond smile and says the next words with as much love for him that she can manage. "I don't want anyone else, I want you. I love you Chris. And if this means that she may end up being our only child, then so be it."
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Chris cuts her off with an insistent kiss that has her toes curling and she curves into his body even more than she had earlier. It doesn't go much further, both of them are far too tired for that, but she gladly accepts falling asleep like this in his arms, so close that they're almost a single person and their foreheads pressed tightly together.
Ashley eventually falls asleep to both the quiet sound of her daughter's breathing through the baby monitor and the comforting sound of Chris's own breathing slowing with her own.