Friday 2 March 2018
Kester and Emma and Kate had been home from the hospital since Monday when the babies had turned a week old. Both babies had developed jaundice a few days after birth, which the doctor assured them was quite common in babies, particularly for those born a little early. Kester had been the worse of the two and had to have phototherapy treatment for a few days. Thankfully, he had responded well to the treatment and had been able to be discharged. Both babies were rapidly losing their yellow colouring and were becoming more interested in life in general.
Given that the babies had had to stay in the hospital for testing and treatment, Kate had also stayed on. She had experienced some issues with breastfeeding and was grateful for the few extra days of assistance from Helen, the lactation consultant, and also from the midwife assigned to her ward. The women had explained that the stress of the twins' early birth and the caesarean meant that her milk would be a bit slow starting, and that Kate just needed to give it time. Kester and Emma's feeding was not helped by their jaundice, which meant that they were sleepy and had difficulty in feeding. Kate had accepted the professionals' advice and tried not to stress, which hadn't been easy for her, and her milk production had finally started coming in properly the night before they all left the hospital.
Kate was taking advantage of a brief lull in baby care to check her emails. Not that she was doing too much baby care at present. Dylan and Pete were still treating her as if she was made of glass, barely letting her do anything beyond feeding the babies. Admittedly, having her belly sliced open and stapled back together hadn't been pleasant, and she was still in some discomfort, but she was getting a little tired of the kid glove treatment. The two men were sharing the babies between them – if Pete burped Kester after one feeding, then Dylan burped him the next time. The same with bathing, changing and anything else baby related. Seeing both large men handling two tiny babies so carefully frequently made Kate smile, notwithstanding her mild frustration at being sidelined.
Kate's email pinged to announce that her mail download had finished. "Spam, advertising, advertising, email from Jess Bird, email from …" Kate paused as she realised that the latest email was from the DNA laboratory.
The three of them had discussed what they would do when the results arrived. The agreement was that Kate would read the email in private and then, when she was ready, would let Dylan and Peter know the outcome. Kate opened the email and swiftly read the contents. Then she read the email again – slowly – and smiled broadly. Finally, she printed out the email.
"That's a bottle of wine you owe me Nikki," she thought to herself. When Nikki and Kate had been discussing the babies a few days after they were born, Nikki had made a prediction as to how the paternity question would turn out. Kate had disagreed and the bet was made between them. Kate wasn't sure how she knew what the outcome would be, but, like she had told Sally about the babies' sexes, deep in her heart she had just known who the fathers were from the time the doctor told her she was having two babies. And now she had been proven right.
Kate emerged from the middle bedroom, which was now used as the study and spare room, given that the former study was now the babies' nursery. From the sounds of it, the men were in the garage, probably doing laundry. Kate shook her head in amazement at the sheer amount of clothing that was dirtied each day by two small babies, let alone the sheets, towels, burp cloths and so on that also needed to be washed. And then there was the adult clothes that suffered from spit up, exploding nappies and Kate's leaking breasts.
Kate placed the printout face down on the dining table, while she went to check on the babies. They were just starting to stir, so Kate took advantage of the men's absence to feed, burp and change the babies herself. Pete came in just as she was finishing changing and dressing Kester. His sister already lay back in her crib, making soft noises to herself. The men had agreed with Kate's suggestion, and the cribs now sat side by side in the babies' room.
"I wondered why it was so quiet in here. We thought that the kids should have been making a bit of noise by now, but you beat us to it." Pete kissed Kate and then offered his finger to Kester, who grasped it firmly. Pete's eyes softened as he looked down at the small baby.
"If you want to get Emma, I'll carry Kester once I'm finished, and we'll go find Dylan. I've got some news for you both." Pete glanced at Kate, but her face gave nothing away. He did as asked, and the four of them went to the kitchen, where Dylan was about to start preparing lunch.
"Can you leave that for the moment please Dylan?" asked Kate. "Here, could you please take Kester for me?"
Kate handed the baby over to Dylan, before she reached over to the paper she had left on the dining table. "The results came in today." She paused and looked at the men, who exchanged apprehensive glances. "This is official, and you can read it for yourselves of course, but the short version is that we have Emma Nicole McGregor Tomaszewski, and Kester Evan McGregor Mulholland.
Both men stared briefly at Kate before each bent to the baby they were holding and kissed their child.
"Clever Kate" marvelled Pete "You managed it so that Dutchy and I both have a child each."
"I'm not sure that there was any managing on my part – just sheer luck really," commented Kate as she read the printout again. "Officially, the explanation is that we have a case of heteropaternal superfecundation. In plain words, fraternal twins born to two different fathers. According to this, it's pretty rare, but not unknown"
"Rare," repeated Dylan.
Kate shrugged and then smiled, "Apparently we're special and so are our babies."
The men both snorted at her comment.
"We always knew we were special," commented Pete.
Dylan stepped forward, still holding his son and carefully hugged Kate. Pete followed his action and soon all five of them were hugging and crying and smiling together.
Sunday 17 February 2019
Today was the party for Kester and Emma's first birthday. Their actual birthday wasn't until Tuesday, but Pete, Kate and Dylan had decided to have the celebration today so that all their friends could attend. Andy was flying north tonight to his mining job, so they had decided to hold a lunch time barbeque. Their friends started arriving shortly before midday and soon all eleven of them were together again, for the first time since Christmas.
Kate looked around at the group gathered in the backyard and silently gave thanks again for such good friends. She occasionally felt a twinge of, certainly not regret, but perhaps a very small wish that her life choices had been more in line with society's norms. She had never made friends easily and since committing to Dylan and Peter, she had shied away from making new friends, who might not understand her relationship choices. Conrad was the first person outside the Hammersley group who had entered their friendship circle here in Perth. But these people loved her and, if they didn't totally understand Kate's life choice, at least they accepted that she, Pete and Dylan were in a loving and committed relationship, as true as the one Nikki and Conrad had.
She looked at the two men, who were encouraging their children to take their first steps. The babies had been 'cruising' along the edge of the lounge and other furniture lately, and Kate knew that both men were hoping that today would be the day for the twins to walk on their own without hanging onto things.
Both children had done so well this last year after their slightly abrupt arrival into the world. They had hit all their developmental goals; vaccines had been received with relatively little aftereffects; and their teeth were coming in nicely with minimal fuss. Their colouring had changed a little since they were born. It was clear that Kester had inherited Kate and Dylan's blonde hair although he had Kate's green eyes. It looked like he had inherited his father's height; already Kester was several centimetres taller than his sister. Emma had taken much more after Pete than Kate in colouring. Her hair was light brown, although with blonde highlights, and her eyes were light brown. She had also inherited her father's wide mouth, most noticeable when she smiled, which she did often. About the only thing she seemed to have inherited from Kate was her slight build.
Since the start of the year Kester and Emma had been attending day-care for one day a week. When Kate returned to work in a month's time, that would increase to two days a week. After much discussion amongst the three of them, Dylan had followed through on the offer he had made two years ago, and had handed in his papers to leave the Navy. He would be a full time stay at home dad, while Kate and Pete continued working.
Both men had taken two weeks' leave straight after the twins were born. Pete had then gone back to work, while Dylan had taken leave for a further two weeks before he also went back to work. Pete took leave later on to support Kate when she was ill for a week with a bout of gastro. Both men had arranged to have variable working hours, whereby each man generally worked a nine-day fortnight, meaning that they each had a day off a fortnight. They separated their days off, so that each Friday one or other of them was usually at home with Kate and the babies. That worked most of the time, except for when Pete went to sea. Kate's days had been full with two babies to care for. The day away from the children when they started at day-care had been a big change for Kate and it had taken a little time for her to get used to having some time to herself again.
Kate would be joining HMAS Arunta next month as a Warfare Officer. So far as she knew, there were no plans for the ANZAC-class frigate to go on long deployments any time soon, which suited her just fine. It would be hard enough leaving the children each morning and returning to work, learning her new role, without adding homesickness and missing the children and their fathers into the equation. Kate was looking forward to returning to a full-time sea position after so long away, but was also dreading not spending every day with the children. It had been hard enough these last weeks taking them to day-care once a week. Although, she had to acknowledge, it was pleasant to have some time to herself; it had been a while since her days had been filled with things other than purely baby-related.
Dylan and Pete decided that it was time to start cooking, and had begun putting different meats onto the barbeque. Conrad and Andy grabbed beers and went over to 'supervise' as Andy put it. Kate took the opportunity to start bringing the salads and bread and other food out onto the tables, which were set up on the terrace.
The meal went well, and everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' to the children when Kate brought out the cake for dessert. Given it was only their first birthday, Kate had opted for a simple lemon sponge cake made at a local bakery and plainly decorated with lemon butter cream icing. As always Dylan had his camera handy and took lots of photos during the course of the day, including when the children opened their presents. Dylan and Pete had constructed a cubby house in a corner of the yard for the children. It would be a little while before they got any use out of it, but the men had enjoyed building it.
Andy and Lani left not long after lunch as Andy needed to be at the airport for the flight north for work. Nikki and Conrad were next to leave, an hour or so later. Sally and Chloe were the last to leave the barbeque. Chloe loved the babies and always had to be dragged away. Sally finally had to put her foot down when it started to get dark, and the two left then.
Naturally, it was about an hour later, after both babies had been fed and bathed that Kester decided to take his first steps. Emma looked at him for a while and then decided that she wanted to be part of this also. She let go of the lounge chair she had been holding onto and walked across the rug to join her brother in the middle of the living room. The three adults cheered and clapped their children. Pete grabbed his phone and started to record the children walking, which he later sent out to their friends.
