Chapter 22

Paris was only eight months along when her water broke, she woke in the middle of the night to , asharp pain followed by a gush of fluid and blood, thirty minutes later, on the way to the hospital, their baby girl came into the world.

Bella was too small, barely four pounds, and she didn't do well breathing on her own. She would have to stay for awhile in NICU. There she was hooked up to all sorts of machines, machines to monitor her, machines that helped her breathe, machines that gave her medicines to make her strong.
It broke Elijah's heart to watch Paris sitting beside the incubator watching their little baby, praying that she would be well and able to come home soon.

The prayers worked and two painful weeks later Paris and Elijah proudly carried tiny Bella into her nursery. It had been a long journey, those two weeks, the first days were like a roller coaster ride, one minute she was doing fine and the next alarms were sounding and nurses were surrounding her little incubator.  There had been days when they wondered if they would ever lay their little angel in a real crib.

Elijah had worked hard while Paris was in the hospital, pulling out some of the baby stuff in his family's storage room and repainting it, making a special nursery for his special daughter.

Bella thrived under the watchful eye of her mother, Elijah, and her big brothers.  She was never without someone to give her all the love any baby could ever desire.

It seemed but a blink of the eye and she was toddling around the house, the boys fought over the chance to make their baby sister laugh.  Life was everything Elijah had dreamed it would be, the pain of his loss had faded and the joy of his family overflowed in the laughter heard throughout the home.

Life stayed ideal for Elijah and his family, the children grew as children do and soon Blake entered into high school.  "Mom, Dad, we need to talk."  Elijah slowly sat down at the table where his son and wife were already sitting and waited to for the shoe to finally drop.  Life had been too easy the last years, he knew it couldn't last forever.  "What is it, Son?"  Blake looked at his parents, and slowly began.  "It's about school, I'm not saying the public school isn't good, but Dad some people approached me about a boarding school, with my straight A's they said I was a shoe in, and probably would even qualify for some scholarships to help pay the costs.  I really want to go, they have all these programs that help prepare you for college, and they are one of the top rated Private Boarding schools in the Nation!"

Paris looked over at her husband and smiled, "You can make the call on this one dear, I really don't see any reason not to let him go, except that we will miss him an awful lot!" Elijah stood up, and looked down at his son, who had begun pacing the kitchen as his parents had quietly discussed the matter between them.
" You can go son, on two conditions, you stay out of trouble, all trouble, and you keep a 3.5 grade point average.  If you can't do those things then you will have to come home to finish your education."

Blake was all grins as he hugged his dad, "Not a problem Dad, thank you both so much, you don't know how much it means to me!"  He ran out of the room crowing to his brother about leaving home for the big world, and Elijah sighed, "I suppose if we do it for Blake, we will have to do it for the rest of them too.  I'm not sure I'm ready for our kids to leave home, Paris!"  Paris tried to hide the tears as she turned back to fixing dinner, she knew she wasn't ready to let go yet.

Two years later they began preparations to send Dawson off to boarding school, as well, he desired a Military school, which surprised both his parents, and frightened Paris a bit when he announced he intended to join as soon as he graduated high school.  She was proud of her son for wanting to give back to his country, but the thought of one of her children at war kept her awake at nights.  She spent those last summer days with him as much as possible.  

A few months before Paris and Elijah received a very unexpected surprise, they were having another baby.  The pregnancy went smoothly despite their fears of delivering preterm again, and during one of her summer fishing days with Dawson the new baby decided it was time to come into the world.

The delivery was quick and Paris was released the next day, free to bring little Faith home to her family.  Dawson had left before they arrived home.  It tore out Paris' heart that she missed wishing him farewell, but a quick call confirmed that he had arrived home safely.

Paris hadn't been prepared to enter into the world of diaper changes and late night feedings, but soon neither her nor Elijah could imagine a life without Faith in it.  They knew their family was complete, and Paris had undergone surgery to make sure there were no more surprises in store for them.

Bella was growing quickly as well and was soon heading off to school, though she pleaded to go to boarding school like her big brothers her parents insisted she was much to young to be away from them for so long, and so she compromised by joining ballet classes, nothing was quite so cute as to watch her Plies in her little tutu!

Bella was just thirteen years old when Blake returned home for good from Boarding school, his little sister couldn't have been happier to have her big brother back home, she had always been so close to both her brothers.  Soon it seemed the two were inseparable again.  Blake had begun college classes, but decided to study at the local Campus so he could save money by living at home, he was determined to become a surgeon.