Thin and reedy at first, then stronger. The most beautiful sound I’d ever heard in my life.
“You did it!” LaLa was crying, tears streaming down her face as she held something small and wriggling in her arms. “You did it, Z! She’s perfect! She’s?—”
She stopped.
I struggled to sit up, my body screaming in protest. “What? What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, she’s fine, but—” LaLa’s eyes went wide. “Zainab. There’s another one.”
“What?”
“There’s another baby. You’re having TWINS.”
The world stopped.
“No.” I shook my head, even as another contraction started building in my core. “No, that’s not possible. All my ultrasounds?—”
“I don’t know what to tell you, mami, but there’s definitely another head right here and you gotta push again. Right NOW.”
I didn’t have time to process. Didn’t have time to think about how this was possible, how everyone missed it, how my one baby had somehow become two. All I could do was push.
And scream.
And pray.
LaLa swaddled baby number one and placed her on the bunk.
“You got this, Z. One more time. One more big push.”
I pushed.
And this time, when the cry came, it was different. Deeper. Stronger.
“It’s a boy!” LaLa’s voice cracked with emotion. “Zainab, you have a son!”
A boy.
A BOY.
I was supposed to be having a girl. Everyone said it was a girl. Prime called her “princess” every night through my belly. We’d picked out a name. We’d decorated a nursery in pink and purple and gold.
And now I had two babies. A girl AND a boy.
Twins.
I reached for them, my arms shaking, my vision blurring. LaLa placed them on my chest—both of them, so tiny, so impossibly perfect—and I held them against my skin and sobbed.
“My babies,” I whispered. “My beautiful babies.”
They were crying too. Both of them. These tiny humans who had just entered the world in the worst possible circumstances, born in a jail cell, caught by an inmate instead of a doctor.
But they were HERE. They were ALIVE. And they were mine.
“Zainab.” LaLa’s voice was gentle but urgent. “Zainab, you’re bleeding a lot. Too much. I need you to stay awake, okay? Stay with me.”
I tried to focus on her face, but everything was getting fuzzy around the edges. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by exhaustion so deep it felt like drowning.
“The COs are coming,” someone said. “I see them down the hall.”
