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Twenty-eight weeks.
Twelve more weeks to go.
You had started to think those two facts could not possibly exist in the same sentence.
Twelve weeks sounded like an eternity when you looked down at yourself and tried to comprehend the amount of growing you still had left to do. You were already carrying so much that sometimes it felt as though your body had become entirely unfamiliar to you. Your belly was round and high and impossibly heavy, stretched taut across the front of you, and every movement seemed to pull somewhere else. Your ribs ached. Your lower back ached. Your hips ached. Even your legs felt tired from carrying the additional weight.
And yet, according to your obstetrician, you still had twelve weeks to go.
At your appointment earlier that week, she had measured your fundal height and paused when she looked at the tape.
"Thirty-seven weeks."
You had stared at her.
Thirty-seven weeks.
For a singleton.
You were twenty-eight weeks pregnant.
With twins.
You had laughed when she told you, mostly because the alternative was staring at the ceiling and wondering how on earth your body was supposed to accommodate another twelve weeks of pregnancy. You already looked like you should have been close to giving birth.
Your belly had become the first thing anyone noticed when you entered a room, and increasingly, it was the first thing you noticed, too. You could no longer look down and see your feet. You had to move around furniture carefully because you couldn't always judge how much space you took up. Getting out of a chair required planning. Turning in bed had become a slow, awkward manoeuvre involving pillows, grunting, and usually waking Jack.
You have been off work for four weeks, and Jack has moved to the day shift, leaving Shen as the lead attending. He knows Shen can handle those night crawlers. Robby is glad to have his best friend back on days, and you're glad to have your husband next to you each night.
Working the night shift filled the void that sat in his life before you, when he was a grieving widower, and the nights were dark and scary. But now he has you. He has closed the chapter on his night shifts for now.
Jack has been taking your pregnancy leave considerably less seriously than you. He had called in sick so many times that you had lost count. Sometimes there was a legitimate reason. Sometimes there wasn't. Sometimes he simply woke up beside you, looked at the state you were in, and decided that there was absolutely no chance he was leaving you alone for the day.
You never asked him to stay. He simply did.
There was something almost instinctive about the way he had become protective of you since your pregnancy had become physically demanding. He didn't treat you like you were incapable. He knew you weren't. You had spent your whole life looking after yourself.
But now there were two babies between you. Two tiny people who were growing beneath your skin. And Jack seemed to feel that every time he looked at you. He wanted to be there. He wanted to touch you. He wanted to know how you were feeling, whether the babies were moving, whether your back hurt, whether you had eaten, and whether you were comfortable. Mostly, he wanted to keep his hands on you.
You had noticed that early in the pregnancy.
At first, it had been almost unconscious. His hand resting on your stomach when you were sitting together. His palm finding the small bump whenever he walked past you. His fingers spreading over your belly when you were lying in bed. As your stomach had grown, so had his fascination with it. Now there was almost always some part of him touching you. A hand beneath your belly. His palm spread over the side. His fingers resting lightly against the curve. His arm around you. His cheek pressed against your stomach while he waited for one of the babies to move.
You had never minded. You loved it.
There was something incredibly reassuring about the way he touched you now. It made you feel as though he wasn't frightened by how much your body had changed. He wasn't looking at you and seeing only the discomfort, the swelling, the weight, the exhaustion. He was seeing you. And he was seeing the two babies you were carrying.
*
That afternoon, you stood in front of the bathroom mirror after your shower, attempting to dry yourself. You had resorted to using one of the enormous bath towels because anything smaller was becoming increasingly impractical. You wrapped it around yourself and looked at your reflection. For a moment, you simply stared. The towel barely seemed capable of containing you. Your belly pressed firmly against the fabric, the curve so pronounced that you could see its shape even through the thick towel. You rested both hands beneath it. The weight settled heavily into your palms.
"How am I supposed to get bigger than this?"
You weren't really expecting an answer. The babies provided one anyway. A slow ripple moved beneath your skin. You looked down. Another movement followed, this time higher up beneath your ribs.
You giggled to yourself. They were responding.
You stood there for another moment, one hand resting protectively over the place where you had felt the movement.
You still found it strange. There were two people inside you. Two little lives who responded to voices, movement, and touch. Two babies who already had a way of making themselves known.
You dried yourself, then reached for one of Jack's old shirts. It had once been enormous on you. You remembered wearing it early in your relationship and complaining that it swallowed you. Now, when you pulled it over your head, the fabric stretched tightly across your belly. You tugged the hem downward. It rode straight back up. You tried again, yet the same thing happened. You sighed and gave up. The bump had won. The shirt was no longer Jack's shirt. It was maternity clothing by necessity.
You slipped into one of his pairs of boxers, which sat comfortably around your hips, and slowly made your way downstairs.
*
One hand rested beneath your belly.
It had become an instinct.
You supported the weight whenever you walked now, especially when you had been sitting or lying down. The pressure seemed to increase the longer you stood, and the underside of your stomach often felt tender and heavy.
Your walk had changed, too. There was no hiding it anymore.
You waddled. Slowly. Carefully.
Each step was placed with thought, your body leaning back slightly to compensate for the weight in front of you.
You had once been able to walk quickly through the house without thinking about it.
Now getting downstairs required patience.
Jack had learned that patience, too. He never hurried you. He simply waited.
When you finally entered the living room, he was sprawled across the couch, one arm tucked behind his head, the television playing quietly. He looked as though he was watching it.
You knew better.
His attention moved toward you almost immediately. His eyes travelled over you, taking in the damp hair, his shirt, the bare legs, and then inevitably settling on your belly. His expression changed. It always did. Something softened in his face whenever he looked at you now. It was part fascination, part affection, and part disbelief. You were so visibly pregnant that even after watching your body change for months, he still seemed surprised by you.
You made your way toward him. He shifted before you even reached the couch. You lowered yourself carefully. It took considerably longer than it used to. You had to turn sideways, brace one hand against the cushion, and lower yourself inch by inch.
Once you were seated, you tried to settle. You shifted. Then shifted. Then shifted again. Your belly was heavy against your thighs, and there wasn't quite enough room between your body and the back of the couch.
You made a small, frustrated sound. Jack immediately moved.
He didn't ask what was wrong. He knew. He slid lower along the couch and rearranged himself so that you could lean against him without your stomach being compressed. His body became a place for you to settle into. You leaned back. Your head found his shoulder. Your hip rested against his. And then, almost immediately, his hand found your belly. It was automatic. His right palm settled against the side of your stomach, warm and broad. For a moment, neither of you moved. You could feel the weight of his hand through the thin cotton of his shirt.
Then one of the babies shifted. Jack felt it. His fingers spread slightly. His entire body seemed to become still.
You smiled.
He didn't say anything. He simply waited. Another small movement pushed against his palm. His eyes dropped to your belly. There was that expression again.
Wonder.
His thumb began moving slowly across the skin. Not rubbing hard. Just tracing gentle, absent-minded circles. He seemed to have forgotten about the television completely. You watched him for a moment. This had become one of your favourite things about him. Jack could sit with his hand on your belly for hours. He didn't need anything to happen. He didn't need to feel a kick. Sometimes he simply liked knowing that his hand was there. Sometimes you wondered if he needed the reassurance as much as you did.
He had spent months watching your body change. He had seen your waist disappear. He had watched your stomach become rounder, then heavier, then increasingly difficult for you to carry. He had seen you struggle to sleep. He had watched you rub your back. He had helped you out of bed. He had listened to you complain about swollen ankles and aching hips and the babies pressing into places you didn't know could hurt.
And through all of it, he had never once looked at your changing body with anything other than tenderness.
His hand moved around the curve. His palm flattened over the upper portion of your stomach. Then he slowly traced the side with his fingertips. You could feel the babies moving beneath him. One pressed outward. Jack's eyes widened slightly. He gently placed his fingertips over the spot.
Another movement followed. His mouth curved into a smile. You leaned your head against his shoulder.
"They've been doing that all day."
His hand stayed there. He seemed completely captivated. You could feel his fingers moving almost imperceptibly over the place where the baby had kicked. It wasn't just the movement itself that fascinated him. It was the knowledge of its cause. The fact that there were two tiny people inside you, shifting and stretching and growing. His children. Your children. His palm covered the place where one of them had moved.
You watched his face. He looked almost overwhelmed. You understood. You felt it too. You had fallen in love with Jack long before any of this. You knew exactly why. You loved the way he looked at you. The way he listened. The way he made you laugh. The way he could tell when something was wrong, even when you insisted you were fine.
But pregnancy had introduced something else.
A different kind of intimacy.
You had never been this physically vulnerable with anyone. Your body was changing every day, and there was nowhere to hide from it. You were tired. Heavy. Sometimes uncomfortable in your own skin.
And Jack had somehow made you feel beautiful through all of it.
He never treated your pregnancy as something that made you less feminine or less desirable. He treated it as something extraordinary. And sometimes, when his hands moved slowly over your belly, you felt more loved than you ever had before. His palm drifted downward. He cupped the underside of your belly.
You exhaled softly.
That was where you carried the most weight. The underside felt as though it was constantly being pulled downward, and having Jack support it, even slightly, gave your body a small reprieve. His fingers spread beneath you. His thumb rested along one side. His other hand moved to the opposite side.
For a moment, he held your stomach with both hands.
You closed your eyes. The relief was immediate.
Jack noticed. He always noticed. His hands adjusted until he found the position that gave you the most support. He didn't need to ask. By now, he knew your body almost as well as you did.
He knew exactly where to put his hands when your back hurt. He knew how to help you roll onto your side in bed. He knew which pillow needed to be under your belly. He knew that when you stood up, you needed a moment before taking the first step. He knew that when you sighed like that, you were uncomfortable. He knew that when your hand went beneath your stomach, you were asking for support without actually asking. And he always gave it.
His palms remained beneath your belly. You rested your hands over his. For several minutes, the two of you simply sat there. The television played quietly. The afternoon light came through the windows. Jack's chest rose and fell behind you. His fingers occasionally moved, stroking gently along your sides. You could feel the warmth of his body against your back. Then one of the babies moved again. This time, the movement was stronger. Jack's hand shifted instinctively toward it.
You felt him smile against your hair. His palm rested there. He didn't say anything. He simply waited.
Another movement.
He bent his head and kissed your cheek. Then your temple. Then the soft skin just beneath your ear. You turned your face slightly toward him. His lips brushed yours. It was a quiet kiss. Tender. Familiar. The kind of kiss that had nothing to prove. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against the side of your head. His hands remained on your stomach. You could feel one baby moving beneath his right palm while the other seemed to be pressing somewhere near your ribs. Jack noticed both. His attention moved from one side of your belly to the other, as though he were trying to work out where each baby was positioned.
You laughed softly. "You'll never figure it out."
He smiled. "I know."
But he kept trying anyway. His hand travelled over the curve of your stomach. He gently cupped one side, then the other. His fingers moved slowly, almost reverently, as though he were learning the shape of you. You relaxed further against him. He kissed your cheek again. His hand returned beneath your belly.
You let out a soft sigh. The weight of it settled into his palms. He held it there.
For a few minutes, you didn't have to support yourself. You didn't have to brace your back. You didn't have to think about your posture. You simply let him hold you. It was such a small thing. But you felt it everywhere. In your shoulders. Your back. Your stomach. Your chest. The relief wasn't only physical. It was the feeling of being cared for. Of having someone look at you and recognise that you were carrying more than you could comfortably hold by yourself.
Jack's fingers moved gently beneath your belly. His thumbs stroked along the sides. He shifted closer. His arms wrapped around you. His chest pressed against your back. You were surrounded by him. His warmth. His arms. His hands. His heartbeat. And the two babies moving between you.
You closed your eyes. You had never imagined pregnancy would make you feel this vulnerable. You had also never imagined it could make you feel this safe. Jack kissed your cheek. Then your neck. Then rested his face against the side of your head. His hand moved over your stomach again. You felt him smile when one of the babies kicked.
It was almost comical how fascinated he was. He had been this way for weeks. Every kick was new. Every movement made him stop. He could be halfway through a conversation, and suddenly his attention would disappear because he'd felt something beneath his hand. Sometimes he'd wake in the middle of the night and find your stomach moving beneath the sheets. Instead of going back to sleep, he'd lie there with his hand resting against you, waiting for another movement. You had woken more than once to find him already awake, his palm spread across your belly, his eyes closed, simply feeling.
You had never teased him about it. Not really.
Because secretly, you loved it. You loved knowing how much he wanted to feel them. How much he already loved them.
You shifted against him. Your stomach was beginning to feel uncomfortable again. Jack immediately adjusted. He moved his leg out of the way. His arm tightened around you. He helped you lean slightly forward, then repositioned his hands beneath your belly.
The change was subtle, but it helped. You settled again. His fingers moved gently. You breathed out.
"You know what I think?"
He looked down at you. You continued before he could answer.
"I think you're more obsessed with my stomach than I am."
His smile widened. His hand stroked slowly across the curve.
"I might be."
You laughed softly. He kissed your cheek. You turned slightly. He kissed you again. Then you rested your head against his shoulder. His hand returns to your belly, caressing it, and admiring just how beautiful you, his wife, are.
You watched it for a moment. There was something intimate about watching someone touch you with such familiarity. His fingers knew where to go. His palms knew how much pressure to use. His hands seemed to recognise the weight of you. He wasn't simply touching your stomach. He was holding part of your life. The part that had become the most physically demanding. The part that represented the two lives you were growing. His children. Your children. Their children.
Jack eventually shifted. His hands moved from beneath your belly to the sides. He gently helped you turn toward him. It took some effort. Your stomach made the movement awkward. You had to shift your hips first, then your shoulders, then carefully reposition your legs. Jack helped without making you feel helpless. One hand at your back. One hand supporting your belly. Once you were facing him, he pulled you closer.
Your stomach rested against his abdomen. He immediately placed both hands around it.
You laughed quietly.
"Straight back to it."
He smiled.
His palms settled over the curve. His fingers spread. He looked down. Then back at you. There was so much affection in his face that your chest tightened. You reached up and touched his cheek. He turned his face into your palm. You stroked his jaw. He kissed the centre of your hand. Then he leaned down. His lips touched your belly. A slow kiss. Then another. He rested his cheek against the curve. You ran your fingers through his hair. He stayed there. You could feel his breath against your skin. His hands remained on either side of your stomach.
The babies moved.
Jack smiled. He lifted his head slightly. His cheek remained pressed against you. Another movement.
He laughed softly. You looked down at him. He looked almost boyish. Completely captivated.
You ran your fingers through his hair again. He closed his eyes. There was something about him, like this, that made you want to hold him. So you did. Your fingers remained tangled in his hair while he rested against your belly. For a few minutes, the world outside disappeared.
There was no television. No work. No appointments. No countdown. No twelve weeks. Just the two of you. And the babies.
Jack eventually lifted himself and kissed your stomach one last time before sitting beside you again. You leaned against him. His arm came around your shoulders. His other hand rested over your belly. You covered his with yours. The babies moved beneath both of your hands.
You smiled. Jack smiled. Neither of you said anything. There didn't seem to be anything left to say.
*
That night, getting upstairs was an ordeal.
Your legs felt heavy. Your back hurt. Your stomach felt as though it weighed twice as much as it had that morning. Jack followed closely behind you. Not hovering. Just there. You climbed each step slowly. One hand on the railing. The other beneath your belly. Jack's hand occasionally resting in the small of your back. A quiet reassurance. You reached the top and stopped.
He waited. You breathed. Jack is now standing right next to you.
"You okay?"
You nodded. He leaned in and kissed your temple.
Then he placed his hand beneath your belly.
You smiled.
"You can't help yourself."
"No."
His palm remained there. You let him support you for another moment before continuing down the hallway. When you reached the bedroom, Jack pulled back the blankets. You sat on the edge of the mattress.
He knelt in front of you. His hands settled on your ankles first, gently rubbing them. Your feet were swollen. He knew they hurt. His thumbs worked carefully over them before moving up your calves.
You watched him. He looked up. You smiled. He smiled back. Then his hands moved to your knees. He gently helped you lift your legs onto the bed.
Once you were lying down, he began arranging the pillows. One behind your back. One between your knees. One beneath your belly. Then another behind you. He kept adjusting them until you finally sighed.
"Perfect."
He smiled.
"Good."
He climbed into bed beside you. You turned onto your side. Jack moved behind you. His body curved around yours. His chest rested against your back. One arm slipped beneath your pillow. The other settled over your stomach. His palm covered the curve. His fingers spread. You felt him gently caress your belly. Slowly. Repeatedly. His thumb moved back and forth. His fingers traced the side. Then his hand slid beneath your stomach and supported it. You immediately relaxed.
Jack kissed the back of your neck. His lips lingered there. You reached back and touched his arm. He kissed your shoulder. Then your cheek. Then the spot beneath your ear. You turned your head. He kissed you. Slowly. Softly. You settled back against him. His hand remained on your belly.
One of the babies moved. Jack smiled against your shoulder. His palm stayed still. Another movement. His fingers curled slightly. He seemed to be holding his breath. You placed your hand over his. The two of you waited. Nothing. Then a small roll.
Jack breathed out a quiet laugh. He kissed your shoulder again. You smiled. There was something almost unbearably sweet about the way he reacted. He loved them already. You could see it. He loved them through you. Every time he touched your belly, every time he waited for a kick, every time he whispered to them when he thought you were asleep, there was a tenderness in him that made you fall for him all over again.
You shifted slightly. He followed you immediately. His arm tightened around you. His hand adjusted beneath your belly. The two of you had developed an entire language without words.
A movement. A touch. A shift. A kiss.
You knew what he meant when his hand moved to your back. He knew what you meant when you reached for his wrist. You knew when he needed to feel the babies. He knew when you needed him to take some of the weight. It was intimate in a way neither of you could have anticipated.
You had once thought intimacy was about being close to someone's body. Now you understood that it could be something quieter. Someone learning the shape of you. Someone learning where you hurt. Someone knowing exactly how to hold you when your body was struggling beneath the weight of what it was doing.
Jack had learned you. He knew your pregnant body. He knew the curve of your stomach. He knew the places that were sore. He knew where to put his hands. He knew how to support you. And he loved doing it.
His palm moved slowly over your belly again. You felt his thumb trace a gentle line along your side. You closed your eyes. You could feel yourself getting sleepy.
"Stay like this." Your voice was barely audible.
Jack kissed your shoulder. His hand tightened gently around your belly. He wasn't going anywhere.
You knew that. You could feel it in the way he held you. He would stay through the discomfort. Through the sleepless nights. Through the appointments. Through the fear. Through the next twelve weeks. Through the birth. Through everything that came afterwards.
You rested your hand over his. His fingers intertwined with yours. The babies moved again. This time, both of you felt it. Jack's breath caught. Your eyes opened. You smiled. He pressed a kiss to your shoulder. His hand remained exactly where it was. You drifted toward sleep with his body wrapped around yours, his palm resting protectively over your belly, and your fingers intertwined with his. And even though your body felt heavy and sore and stretched beyond anything you had imagined possible, you felt held. Not just physically. Completely.
Jack's arm was around you. His hand was on your stomach. Your babies were moving beneath his palm. And for the first time that day, you weren't thinking about how much bigger you might become. You weren't thinking about twelve more weeks. You weren't thinking about the aches or the discomfort or how impossible it seemed that there was still so much pregnancy ahead of you.
You were simply lying there in the arms of the man you loved. His hand gently supporting the weight of your belly. His fingers were slowly caressing the skin. His cheek against your hair. His body warm against yours. And somewhere beneath his palm, one of your babies moved again.
Jack smiled in his sleep. Even unconscious, his hand tightened slightly around you. As though his body already knew what his mind had known for months. He would keep holding you. He would keep reaching for your belly. He would keep feeling for the babies. And you would keep letting him, because somewhere along the way, his hands on your stomach had become one of the safest feelings in the world.
And as you finally drifted off, wrapped in his arms with your twins moving quietly beneath his palm, you realised that maybe you didn't have to understand how you were going to make it through the next twelve weeks. You only had to make it through one day at a time. One breath. One movement. One night. And, whenever the weight became too much, you had Jack. You had his arms. His hands. His steady presence. And the way he always seemed to find your belly in the dark, gently holding the part of you that was carrying everything you both loved most.