Chapter 5 - The Baby Who Came First
Fourteen weeks after Marcus denied coming home, one of my uteruses went into labor while the other remained completely still.
I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my daughter and twenty-six weeks pregnant with my son. Dr. Cole had admitted me two days earlier after I began feeling pressure on my left side. By midnight, the cervix connected to my daughter's uterus had opened seven centimeters. The other cervix stayed closed.
"If we cannot stop this labor, your daughter will be born tonight," Dr. Cole said.
"And my son?"
"If his uterus remains stable, we may be able to keep him inside."
"You can deliver one baby without delivering the other?"
"It has happened in women with your anatomy, but I cannot promise it."
A contraction tightened across the left side of my abdomen. On one monitor, my daughter's heartbeat began slowing. The second heartbeat stayed steady.
"Simone," Dr. Cole said, "we need to deliver your daughter."
Marcus hadn't attended a single appointment since the anatomy scan. Every conversation came through attorneys. He'd filed for divorce, requested access to my medical records, asked a judge to compel invasive paternity testing. The judge refused.
My daughter was born at 2:16 a.m. Three pounds, fourteen ounces. Her cry was small but fierce. A nurse held her near my face for only a moment before the neonatal team carried her to an incubator.
"Is she breathing?"
"Yes," Dr. Cole said. "She needs support, but she's fighting."
Then everyone's attention shifted to the baby still inside me. Medication slowed the contractions. An ultrasound showed my son curled inside the second uterus, seemingly unaware his sister had already entered the world. My right cervix stayed closed.
Dr. Cole smiled for the first time that night. "He's staying."
I was moved to a monitored maternity room while my daughter — I named her Ivy — went to the NICU.
Marcus arrived six hours later with his attorney. He didn't ask to see me. He went straight to the NICU and demanded a DNA sample from Ivy. Hospital security removed him after he argued with a nurse, but his attorney delivered the request to Teresa before noon.
"If you say no, he'll claim you're hiding something," Teresa warned.
"Will the test hurt her?"
"A cheek swab. Nothing more."
I signed the consent form. Not for Marcus. For Ivy. Someday I wanted my daughter to know her mother had never been afraid of the truth.
The result arrived forty-eight hours later. Marcus was Ivy's biological father with a probability greater than 99.99 percent.
He came to my hospital room after receiving the report. I was still pregnant with our son — two fetal monitors beside my bed, one tracking the baby inside me, the other temporarily connected to Ivy whenever nurses brought her incubator close enough for me to touch her hand.
Marcus set the DNA report on my blanket. "You were right about her."
"About your daughter."
His eyes moved to my stomach. "I never questioned the older baby."
"You accused me of betraying you while both our children were at risk."
"The dates still don't explain the second one."
"They do if you admit you came home."
He stepped closer. "Proving Ivy is mine proves nothing about the child you're still carrying."
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On the monitor, our son's heartbeat continued steadily. Marcus looked directly at it.
"When that baby is born," he said, "we'll learn who his father is."
