Donovan

9 months and 17 days later

When she looks up from her position on the stool at the foot of the bed, Dr. Kai beams at my wife. “You’ve done great so far, Eden. Now it’s time to start pushing,” she declares.

Everything seems to happen very quickly as soon as those words are uttered. There are nurses and talking, but I ignore all that to focus on the grunts of pain from my wife as her petite hand squeezes mine with the strength of a fucking gladiator. The bones in my hand feel like they’re being pulverized, but I’m not about to complain since I’m not the one pushing a person out of my body.

I’ve done everything I could do to stay focused through this pregnancy—not to compare it to what happened when Brady was born, not to get depressed and angry about what I lost. There were times when it was hard to do. In the beginning, I worried that Brady might be looking down on me thinking I’m replacing him. I’m not and I never could. No matter my future, I will mourn the loss of my son every single day of my life. There will never come a time when I’m over it, and my wife has helped me to understand that it’s okay to feel that pain.

I loved Brady with every part of me and I miss him every single day in a million different ways. I was robbed of decades of memories with my little man and as angry as that makes me, it isn’t my loss that guts me the most. It’s his. It’s the years and experiences that were taken away from him, my bright, beautiful boy. He deserved more time, and it was taken from him by an act of selfish evil that destroyed dozens of lives. The ripple effect of that day will continue on in ways big and small for decades to come.

If he’d been able to live the life he should have, my eleven-year-old son would’ve been my best man when I married Eden four months ago. He’d be out in the waiting room with the rest of our family right now, waiting for the arrival of his brother or sister. It rips my heart up that he’s not, but in this moment, I swear I feel his presence, like he’s right next to me. So close, and yet so far.

“One more push, Eden. This is it,” Dr. Kai says.

Leaning over, I kiss my wife’s forehead. “Let’s see what we’ve got, little mama.”

In this moment, the fear hits me as hard as it ever has. For almost eight months I’ve asked myself a million times if I have it in me to love another child as much as I loved Brady. What if I’m too broken? What if I fail? It feels like everything happens in slow motion as I wait.

“It’s a girl!” the doctor cheers.

As the doctor holds the baby up, she lets out her first cry and I see her little legs flailing. For a moment I’m transported back eleven years, to the last time I was in a delivery room. Just like then, the rush of love for that little life hits me so hard I nearly fall to my knees.

I realize I’m openly sobbing when Dr. Kai lays our daughter on Eden’s chest and I have to wipe away tears to see her little face. “She’s perfect,” Eden murmurs.

I nod my agreement. “I can’t believe we made her.”

Resting my cheek against Eden’s, I enjoy the moment as we both stare in wonder at the little life we created. Like her mother, she’s tiny and so beautiful I find it hard to catch my breath.

We whisper our love for each other and for her while we count her fingers and toes and get to know her. When the nurse comes to take the baby to clean her up, I’m not happy to see her go. Like her brother and her mother before her, Megan Juliette Beckett—named for Eden’s mother and my cousin— has taken hold of my heart from the very first minute.

Eden was right. The heart always has room for more.