Macie's Story

10

Hailey lowers her chin slightly closer to her daughter and her voice cracks. "You remember me? I'm your Momma. You're safe with me, I promise."

xxx

A few minutes later, Hailey tilted her head up toward Jay still standing right next to her with a small quirk in her eyebrow. "You wanna hold her?"

Like he had done a few days prior, Jay stammers back on his words, taken aback, seeming to be a little unsure. "You haven't been holding her that long." He says.

Hailey sighs slightly, knowing what he was doing. She shakes her head and shifts in her seat slightly, getting the attention of Isla, who adjusts her own hand accordingly. "Jay, just hold her." She tells him.

And with that, Isla grabs hold of the infant again and lifts her into the air momentarily to allow Hailey time to get up to her feet and switch places with her fiancé. Jay sits down in the chair hesitantly and before Isla can move the infant back down again, he stops her and stares up at Hailey.

"Are you sure you're okay with standing? I can grab you another chair quickly if you'd like."

"It's okay, I can grab it myself. You just focus on what you're doing," she then shoots him a soft, reassuring smile. "You got this, and Isla's right here."

Jay just nods and looks back up at the nurse as she starts to move the infant back down again. The detective lets out a small shaky breath as he feels the nurse lower the newborn under the neck of his shirt, ensuring the same checks as she had done before. He could instantly feel the warmth coming from her chest and it brings and unconcious smile to his face as he follows Isla's instructions on where to put his hands and then the nurse moves away a step, allowing the father to pull the infant further into his chest a little, feeling that breath fall back out.

Everything seems to slow down as Jay drops his chin to his chest and tilts it to the side, mumbling quietly under his breath. "Hi... Hi sweetheart, it's Daddy.." he pauses for a beat when he feels his daughter squirm on top of him, stretching her arms out across his chest and feels the smile on his face grow wider. "I love you." He adds.

xxx

(January 30th, 16 days old)

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay doing all this?" Jay asks concernedly as Hailey climbs out of the truck.

She nods quickly. "I'm gonna be fine," she says, swatting his hand away when he offers to help. Her feet touch the floor and she slides out, reaching her arm over her chest to shut the passenger side door. "Besides, we need to get an idea of what we're gonna do, and how." She replies, joining him as he collected a cart from outside the store.

He silently asks if she wants to push the cart and she takes up on the offer, finding it a nice way of leaning up against something and taking some of the weight off her feet but she quickly found it was difficult to steer with only one hand. Jay figured she was having a problem so he jumped ahead of it, holding the front end of the shopping cart to make sure it didn't crash into anything.

They got through the main entrance doors before Hailey's eyes widened.

"Have you got the paper?" She questions.

Jay doesn't even look back over his shoulder as he pats the pocket to his coat. "Right here," he replies and he hears Hailey hum from behind. He peers his head around one of the aisles, not finding where he was looking for so he carries on stepping forward. "And remember, we're not here to buy anything today because I need an extra set of hands. We're getting an idea of the stuff we want to buy and then-"

Hailey bobs her head and cuts in. "We'll buy it in a few days, yeah you've said quite a few times already."

"I'm just making sure you remember before you try lifting a box of crib parts into the cart insisting you're fine." He checks a second aisle and keeps moving.