I took a few deep breaths to relax. This was no joke. I wished I could've been in a different position so I could let gravity do its thing.

"You're almost there, love!" Charles said.

"I hope," I said.

I'd been pushing for thirty minutes already, and this was getting exhausting. I couldn't feel my contractions and had to rely on everyone else. I also felt completely embarrassed having so many people looking between my legs. I never, ever, wanted to do this again.

"One more time, Aster!" said Doctor Andrews.

I held on to the handles of the bed while everyone around me counted to ten. Once I hit ten, I heard crying. I leaned back as Doctor Andrews held up my little baby.

"It's a girl! It's a girl!" Charles said, practically jumping up and down.

The nurses put her on my chest as they cleaned her off. One of them held an oxygen mask over my little girl's face. I thought she wouldn't be able to cry, but she was wailing the whole time. She was absolutely beautiful. Jaxlyn was blonde like me, Jaxson had his father's light brown hair, and Lucky was dirty blonde, like his mother. But this little baby had dark brown hair, like Charles.

"She looks just like you!" I said to him, right as they were taking her away from me.

They had Charles cut her cord and then quickly whisked her away to the NICU. I knew they'd take her away, but I only got about a minute with her. It wasn't fair.

When everything was said and done, I got some rest and some hospital breakfast before seeing my family. They got the kids dropped off with Hannah and Darlene. Hospitals were a boring place for kids to be. It made sense.

My parents came in and gave me a hug. We showed them the few pictures of our baby girl that Charles was able to get on his phone. Shortly after my parents got there, Cynthia and Austin walked in. Since they weren't here since the middle of the night, they came with gifts.

"They're pre-washed in Dreft and ready to go for the little miss!" said Cynthia, handing me the gift bag.

"Thank you so much!" I said, pulling some preemie-sized onesies and sleepers out of the bag.

"We made sure to get the ones with the side buttons so it's easy for them with all the wires," she said.

"Thanks Mum," Charles said, giving her a hug.

"So, what's her name?" my mom asked.

"The suspense is killing us!" my dad said.

"She's our little miracle, so we're naming her Mira!" I said. "Mira Fate Styles."

"Fate? Not Faith?" my mom asked.

"We did it because it was total fate that Aster and I met when we did. If we didn't get our vaccine on that same time and day, I don't know that we ever would've seen each other," Charles said.

"I don't think we would have. We lived on different sides of town and went to different high schools. I never would've met you."

"One bloody good thing from COVID. Just this one thing," Charles said, taking my hand in his.

After visiting my family, a nurse came by to take me down to the NICU. The numbness from my epidural was fading, but I still couldn't walk. They said it would take about four hour or so for it to completely wear off and for me to walk again.

"So here is baby Mira," said the nurse.

She brought us over to an incubator. We got to insert the name card that we decorated for Mira. We just wrote her name and drew a couple flowers around it with the colored pencils they gave us.

Mira was sleeping pretty peacefully. She had on a few monitors and the little oxygen tubes going in her nose. They put the mittends on her that I brought with me, but she had nothing else on besides a tiny little diaper. She had to be cold, even in the incubator. I wanted to ask to hold her, but I didn't want to wake her up. She needed her rest so she could conserve her energy.

"There she is. She's so cute," I said.

"She came in at four pounds, one ounce. Pretty good for a baby born at thirty-two weeks," said the nurse.

"Thanks. One of my twins was ginormous. I feel like I'm going to be on a trend of huge kids," I said, laughing.

"Baby number four. I can't believe she's really here," Charles said.

"Me either. She's perfect," I said.