“Meet Aurora and Atlas,” the caption read, accompanied by a photo of two tiny hands curled around their mother’s fingers. The image radiated warmth, but the moment TV star Emily Hart hit “post,” she felt the familiar knot in her stomach tighten.

The response was immediate. Comments and likes poured in by the thousands, a flood of heart emojis, congratulations, and, inevitably, opinions.

“Beautiful names! So unique!”
“Atlas? Really? Poor kid.”
“Twins?! How does she look that good already?”
“She’ll probably hire ten nannies.”

Emily locked her phone and leaned back in the nursery’s rocking chair, her gaze drifting to the crib where her newborns slept. Aurora’s tiny lips twitched as if dreaming, while Atlas made the smallest of sighs, his hand brushing against his sister’s.

Her husband, Jake, peeked into the room, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. “How’s it going in here?” he whispered.

“They’re perfect,” she murmured, but her voice carried an edge of exhaustion.

Jake stepped in, crouching beside her. “You okay?”

She hesitated. “Do you ever feel like...we’re sharing too much? That this moment should just be ours?”

Jake nodded slowly, glancing at the crib. “I do. But then I think about the good it does, too. People see us, and maybe it makes them feel less alone in their own chaos.”

Emily sighed, her fingers tracing patterns on the armrest of the chair. “But it’s never enough, is it? The scrutiny. The judgment. Even now, I can hear the whispers about how I’ll mess this up.”

Jake reached for her hand, his calloused fingers grounding her. “You’re not going to mess this up. And those whispers? They don’t matter. What matters is in that crib, right there.”

She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. He was right, of course. But the noise of the world still pressed against her like static, threatening to drown out the quiet beauty of these first days.

Taking a deep breath, Emily stood and leaned over the crib, her heart swelling as Aurora stirred and Atlas’s hand found hers.

Maybe she couldn’t silence the world, but in this moment, surrounded by the soft breaths of her newborns and the steady presence of Jake, she realized she didn’t have to. Aurora and Atlas didn’t need the world’s approval. They just needed her.

And that, she decided, was more than enough.