I remember the first time I held both of my daughters.
They were so small.
I had spent months imagining their faces, their little hands, and what it would feel like to finally meet them.
Nothing had prepared me for the reality.
They were here.
Both of them.
My daughters.
I looked at their faces and felt a kind of happiness I couldn't explain properly.
There was also exhaustion.
A lot of it.
But whenever I looked at them, I forgot about everything else for a moment.
The first thing I wanted to do was tell Ryan.
I wanted him to know that the girls had arrived.
I wanted him to see them.
I wanted him to hear their little sounds and understand that he was now a father.
When I finally spoke to him, I could hear the excitement in his voice.
He asked how I was doing.
Then he asked about the babies.
I told him they were both doing well.
I told him they were beautiful.
I probably repeated that several times.
He wanted to know everything.
Their size.
How they looked.
How they were sleeping.
Whether they looked like me.
Whether they looked like him.
I answered as much as I could.
Then I showed him the girls through the phone.
He stared at the screen.
For a moment, he didn't say anything.
I thought perhaps the connection had frozen.
Then I heard him speak.
"They're really ours."
I smiled.
"Yes, Ryan. They're yours."
He looked at them again.
I could see how badly he wanted to be there.
He told me he wished he could hold them.
He said he had been waiting for this moment for months.
I believed him.
I wanted to believe every word.
He told me he would make up for the time he had missed.
He promised he would spend as much time as possible with the girls when he returned.
I didn't ask him to promise anything more.
I just wanted him home.
The days that followed were not easy.
Two newborn babies needed attention almost constantly.
There was always something to do.
One needed feeding.
The other needed changing.
Sometimes both cried at once.
I learned to recognize their different sounds.
I learned that getting a few minutes of sleep could feel like a luxury.
And I learned how quickly a simple day could become exhausting.
There were moments when I sat down with one baby in my arms and the other sleeping nearby.
I would look at them and think about Ryan.
I imagined him coming through the door.
I imagined placing one daughter in his arms and then the other.
I imagined him looking down at them with the same expression I had seen during our calls.
I wanted that moment more than anything.
Whenever he contacted me, I gave him updates.
I told him about their little habits.
I told him when they slept.
I told him when they were unsettled.
I described the small things that might not have sounded important to anybody else.
But they mattered to me.
They were the details of our daughters' first months.
Ryan seemed interested.
He kept saying he couldn't wait to meet them properly.
Sometimes he asked me to bring the phone closer so he could see their faces.
I did.
Sometimes I held the phone while one of the girls slept against my shoulder.
He would look at the screen quietly.
Then he would tell me how much he missed us.
Those calls became part of my routine.
I began looking forward to them.
There was comfort in hearing his voice.
Even when I was tired, even when the girls had kept me awake, I tried to make time for him.
I didn't want him to feel left out of their lives.
I understood that his job made things difficult.
I understood that being away from home for months wasn't easy.
But I also believed he understood what I was going through.
I was learning to care for two babies while he was away.
Neither of us had expected that our first months as parents would happen this way.
Still, I kept telling myself that it was temporary.
There would be a day when we wouldn't have to speak through a screen.
A day when Ryan could wake up and see his daughters.
A day when I wouldn't have to explain what they were doing because he would be right there watching them.
That thought helped me through the harder days.
The girls began to settle into their own little routines.
I became more confident with them.
I still made mistakes.
I still worried about things that probably didn't need so much worrying.
But I was learning.
And every time Ryan called, I had something new to tell him.
He never stopped saying how excited he was to come home.
He talked about meeting the girls.
He talked about holding them.
He talked about finally being together again.
I listened carefully.
I stored those words away.
Sometimes I replayed them in my head after the call ended.
It may sound foolish now.
But at the time, those promises felt solid.
I didn't think I needed to question them.
There was no reason, as far as I knew, to expect anything other than the reunion we had discussed.
Then Ryan told me that his return was getting closer.
He would be coming home after another stretch at sea.
I began counting the time.
Three months.
That was what stood between us and the moment I had imagined since the girls were born.
Three more months of waiting.
Three more months of caring for the babies without their father beside me.
But this time, the waiting had an end I could see.
I started imagining what our first day together would look like.
I imagined the girls in his arms.
I imagined the four of us going home.
I imagined how happy he would be.
And I began thinking about something special.
I wanted to give him a moment he wouldn't forget.
I wanted the first time he saw his daughters to be a surprise.
I didn't know then how differently that day would turn out.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Had Planned a Quiet Reunion at Home, Until I Realized I Could Bring Our Daughters Straight to Him
I Thought the Hardest Part of Having Twins Would Be Raising Them Alone While My Husband Was Somewhere Across the Ocean
Part 2 of 20
