Julie chuckled a little, placing her hand on Aaron's shoulder and sighing.
"You want to hold her?" he asked, shifting the baby's position slightly.
Julie nodded, positioning herself a little better and then carefully taking the baby into her arms.
It was the most amazing moment of her entire life, looking down into the sleepy little face of a person that she created. She was so beautiful, with the tiniest little nose and mouth, and wrinkly little fingers that Julie caught and rubbed lightly with her thumb.
The tenderness she felt was almost overwhelming, and Julie was half certain she was going to burst with it.
"You're right," she said, nodding and placing a little kiss on her baby's fist. "There's no way any other baby could have been this perfect."
"She's an anomaly, I tell ya," Aaron confirmed, smiling down into his daughter's face.
Despite her earlier objections to labor, she decided she would do it ten more times if she had to just to hold that little bundle in her arms.
Glancing up at the nurse, she said, "What's her information? How much does she weigh? How long is she? I don't even know when she was born—I'm a terrible mother!"
Smiling patiently, the nurse said, "She was born at 9:44, she was 20 inches long, 7 lbs 3 oz and you are not a terrible mother."
Grinning, Julie said, "You are a perfect little girl, did you know that? Mommy and Daddy are going to spoil you as much as we can without crossing the border to rotten."
"Daddy has been reading parenting books," Aaron informed the baby. "I have a pretty good idea of how this works."
Scoffing, Julie said, "Daddy's in for a rude awakening, isn't he?"
Even though she knew it wasn't developmentally possible for the baby to smile in reaction yet, a little gas bubble must have intervened because it very much looked like little Alyssa Jane smiled conspiratorially.
---
Once the excitement of Alyssa Jane being born began to calm down, the baby was taken away for standard tests. When the baby was brought back in, Julie was instructed on how to breastfeed her and given a little tutorial on how to put diapers on with the umbilical cord.
There was a little folder full of important papers that included a paper they needed to fill out for Alyssa’s birth certificate, and the woman who gave it to them gave them a speech, making sure Aaron understood his duties if he put his name down as her father, presumably because they weren’t married.
Without hesitation, Aaron whipped the paper out, grabbed a pen, and put his name down as Alyssa’s father.
Julie eventually called her mother to tell her that she had delivered, and she assured her that she could come visit the baby at her earliest convenience in their new home. Honestly, Julie didn't even like being in the hospital, so she wasn't overly excited about getting visitors.
Only Leigh visited, which came as a relief to Aaron and Julie. She cooed and fussed over the baby, held her, took some pictures, and eventually left, and there were no unpleasant surprise visitors. Since he was afraid of just that, Aaron didn't even call Matt to tell him the baby had been delivered until the next day when they were packing Julie's things up and just about to leave the hospital. Julie sat in the wheel cheer holding her baby, admiring everything about her precious little face, fingers, toes, nose… if she had one, Julie was admiring it. Her attention was rapt on the baby and she didn't even give half a thought to Aaron calling Matt until Aaron put the phone down and walked over to Julie, looking like the weight of the entire world had suddenly slipped off his shoulders.
"What'd he say?" Julie asked almost absently.
With a helpless grin, he leaned over her shoulder to gaze down at Alyssa as he informed her, "They're moving to New York. Emma got a job there… they're packing their stuff as we speak."
Smiling a little to herself, she silently said a little note of thanks to Matt.
Aaron took her hand, placing another kiss there and saying, "Thank you."
A little startled, she said, "For what?"
"For this," he said simply, indicating the little family he was now a part of.
Smiling and leaning in to lightly nuzzle her face against him, she gave him a kiss and said, "Thank you. You're the one who came to my rescue; God only knows where I'd be without you."
"You'll never have to find out," he promised her.
She smiled contentedly then gazed down into the face of their daughter once more, overwhelmed with happiness and wondering what she had done right in life that she deserved so much love.
Aaron took her hand once more and wordlessly slid a diamond ring onto the appropriate finger.