"Come on, Jordyn. Think! I can't think of anything!" I encourage my wife as she thinks so hard her head might explode.
"Phoebe!" she says.
"Absolutely not."
"Sam."
"No."
"Eva."
"No."
"Charlotte."
"No."
"Can you at least suggest some then?" she pleads.
"Jean."
"We are not naming our daughter Jean."
"That's fair enough."
"Agnis."
"No." we both say at the same time.
"Think!" I say to myself.
"I got it!" Jordyn exclaimed.
"I'm listening."
"So, she's a product of our love right? What can love sometimes be described as? A chain. What keeps a chain together? A link. She's a link on our chain."
"So you want to call our child, Link?" I question.
"Yeah." she nods enthusiastically.
"I love it." I tell her.
"Finally!" she sighs and hugs me close.
"Little Link." I smile.
Perhaps we should've named her before I was almost at my due date. Which was tomorrow. January 31st.
She's been kicking about a lot lately. It's annoying but it's good to know she's still around.
"I need to go to the bathroom." I announce and Jordyn helps me to my destination.
I sit down and do my business when all of a sudden, more comes out. Like, a lot more. After I sit their in shock, I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding.
My water just broke. Fabulous.
I finish up in the bathroom and do my little pregnancy waddle over to the door.
"Hey, are you okay?" Jordyn says when I open the door.
"My water just broke."
Jordyn's eyes go wide and she starts rushing out of the room. Probably to get the bag in the car. But she forgot one important thing.
Me.
I was stood upstairs for a few minutes in a silent house. Then I hear the front door open and hurried footsteps up the stairs. Then a loud bang followed by an 'Ouch' and she bursts through the bedroom door.
"Sorry. Let's go."
We get in the car and head for the hospital. All the while, Jordyn is speaking in Welsh to herself.
"Will you stop that?" I ask her. My first contraction ripped though my body. I scream in pain and poor Jordyn doesn't know what to do, so she places her hand on my back and tells me comforting things, in English this time.
We finally arrive at the hospital and as we got through the door, another contraction came. A wheelchair was brought over to me and I was wheeled to the delivery room, still screaming. I don't think Jordyn's hand has left my back since the car.
I get situated and now all we can do is wait. But my body feels horrible from the contractions, which are getting more frequent by the minute.
"Baby wants out." I pant, taking hold of Jordyn's hand and squeezing it in my death grip as another contraction came.
I was not far off from being fully dilated. I'm pretty sure I have broken my wife's hand at this point.
About an hour of excruciating pain went by and I was finally ready to push.
"Okay, she's crowning! Let's do another push." the doctor says.
I push again, pain taking control of my body as I crush Jordyn's hand.
"Nearly there! One more and you'll meet your daughter."
I push and a sound that makes me melt flies through the air. My baby crying. She's brought over to me and I hold her for a minute as the doctor declares the time of her birth, twelve forty-two PM, before they take her away again to clean her up and do health checks. I notice Jordyn's tears of joy over her mask. Which I pull down and kiss her lips.
"We just had a baby." she says when we pull away.
"We did." I smile as tears of my own fall from my eyes.
The doctor brings back our daughter, all clean and healthy. She hands her to me and I stare at my gorgeous girl.
"Do we have a name chosen yet?" the doctor smiles.
"Link."
"That's unusual, but a good one, nonetheless. I'll bring in her birth certificate shortly."
I thank her and she leaves me and my girls alone.
Jordyn is looking down at her in awe and longing. I think she wants a hold.
"You wanna hold her?"
She nods and I scoot over a little bit so she can fit on the bed. I gently hand over our daughter to my wife.
"Hey, baby." she smiles at the infant. "I love you so much."
She gives the baby a nose kiss and hugs her close. Her phone was just poking out of her pocket so I take it out and snap some photos. She's so oblivious sometimes, it's adorable.
"We should probably tell our parents." I say.
"Let's just have a minute with her. I fear I'll never see her again when my parents arrive." Jordyn tells me.
"That's fair enough." I chuckle.
After we have about half an hour to ourselves with Link, we call our parents in and they were here almost immediately.
"Aw, look at our granddaughter!" Tina whines to Kate.
My Mom arrived not too long after them.
"Who wants to hold her first?" I question.
"Your Mom can hold her first, we can wait." Tina says and Kate nods.
My Mom says thank you to them and takes Link from me.
"What's her name?" Mom asks.
"Link." Jordyn replies.
A thoughtful silence passes when Tina gasps in realisation. She proceeds to give the explanation that Jordyn gave me about the love chain and I am left with my jaw hanging.
"We almost named Jordyn and Jaydyn Link and Lloyd. Almost." she gives me the simple answer. I nod and close my my jaw.
After my Mom is done with my baby, she hands her to Tina, who who looks down in awe like Jordyn did.
Then Kate held her and smiled. She said sweet things to Link and then she was done. We put her in the cot after Kate handed her back to her daughter. Jordyn looked confused, I'm guessing she was expecting them to stick around and fawn over the baby longer.
"We have to get back to work, kiddo. But she is adorable and we might be over on the weekend, depends what you want." Tina explains.
Jordyn only nods and Tina and Kate left to go back to work.
My Mom still sticks around, to make sure I'm okay and the baby. It's hard to read her when it comes to Jordyn.
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Jordyn announces. She leaves and I look to my Mom.
"Mom? Do you like Jordyn?" I ask her.
"I do. She's a very lovely woman." she tells me.
"And that's your honest opinion?"
"Yeah. She seems like she loves you a lot." Mom smiles.
"You have no idea." I chuckle.
After a little while, Jordyn comes back and gestures to herself, "I'm back."
"You're back." I repeat and she wanders over to the baby in the cot. She leans over it and rubs her finger along Link's cheek. Jordyn smiles and comes back over to me. She lies on the bed and cuddles into me.
"I'm going to head out now." Mom says as she stands up. "I have some errands to finish off. Congratulations, baby, your daughter is beautiful. And thank you, Jordyn, for looking after my girl." She pinches my cheek and rubs my head.
"It is my pleasure, Ms Ford." Jordyn grins.
"Please, call me Darcey." she insist.
"Okay, Ms Ford. See you later! You should come over for dinner sometime, as well. We'd love to have you over." Jordyn offers. My Mom laughs and shakes her head.
"You focus on your little family first. Get settled, then we'll see."
And with that, Mom leaves and as if on queue, Link cries. Jordyn gets up and brings her over to me. The second she's in my arms, she's looking for my breast, she's hungry. I lift my my gown and let her feed. It kinda hurts, she has a strong grip. Wonder where she gets that from?
"She's adorable." Jordyn thinks out loud.
"Isn't she just?"