Chapter 2 - Three Babies, One Exhausted Mother
Before our children were born, Gareth was the kind of husband other women described as a catch.
He remembered our anniversary without needing a reminder. He cooked pasta when I worked late, brought coffee to me on Saturday mornings, and never walked past a grocery store without asking whether I needed anything.
Whenever our married friends complained about husbands who disappeared into another room whenever a baby started crying, Gareth would shake his head.
“I’ll never understand men like that,” he once told me.
We were sitting at our kitchen table on a rainy Sunday afternoon. We had been married almost four years.
“You say that now,” I teased.
“I mean it.”
“You’ve never changed a diaper.”
“How complicated can it be?”
I laughed.
Gareth leaned across the table.
“I’m serious, Maribel. When we have kids, we do everything together.”
He always talked about children in the plural.
Not a child.
Children.
“I don’t want just one,” he would say. “I want a noisy house. Three or four kids running everywhere.”
I reminded him that children also meant stomach bugs, screaming at two in the morning, mountains of laundry, daycare bills, and vacations built around nap schedules.
He always smiled.
“We’ll figure it out.”
Those words became one of the foundations of our marriage.
We’ll figure it out.
Together.
So when I found out I was pregnant, Gareth cried before I did.
When the doctor later showed us three tiny shapes on the ultrasound monitor, neither of us understood what we were seeing.
The doctor smiled.
“Well,” she said, “it appears congratulations are in order three times.”
Gareth stared at the screen.
“Three?”
“Triplets.”
His mouth fell open.
I grabbed his hand.
For approximately five seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Gareth laughed.
Not nervous laughter.
Joyful laughter.
He squeezed my hand so tightly that I complained.
“Three babies,” he whispered.
The doctor started explaining that a triplet pregnancy would be considered high risk, that I would need increased monitoring, and that premature delivery was common.
Gareth barely took his eyes from the screen.
“Three,” he kept saying.
Later, sitting in the car, I began crying.
Gareth immediately turned toward me.
“Hey.”
“I’m scared.”
He took both my hands.
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
I laughed through my tears.
“What if I can’t do this?”
“You’re not doing it alone.”
“Three babies, Gareth.”
“Then there will be two of us against three of them.”
I smiled.
“That doesn’t sound like good odds.”
“We’ll survive.”
He kissed my forehead.
“We’re a team.”
Throughout my pregnancy, he behaved exactly like the husband I had always believed he was.
He attended appointments.
He assembled bassinets.
He spent an entire Saturday arguing with three infant car seats before finally getting them correctly installed.
When my ankles swelled, he brought me ice packs.
When I became too uncomfortable to sleep upstairs, he moved a mattress into the downstairs den so I would not be alone.
At our baby shower, Gareth became the center of attention almost as much as my enormous stomach.
His best friends, Colby and Jensen, arrived carrying a gift bag.
“Open ours,” Jensen insisted.
Gareth pulled out a navy T-shirt.
Across the front, in large white letters, it read:
TRIPLE-DUTY DAD.
Everyone laughed.
Gareth immediately pulled it over his shirt.
He stood beside me, one hand on my stomach, while Colby took pictures.
“Three babies don’t scare me,” Gareth announced.
Someone shouted, “Wait until they all start crying!”
“I’ll handle the night feedings.”
The room erupted in applause.
I laughed harder than anyone.
I saved that photograph.
Gareth smiling confidently.
Me beside him, tired but happy.
His hand resting protectively across my stomach.
At the time, the picture represented everything I thought our future would be.
I never imagined it would later become evidence of a promise my husband had no intention of keeping.
Our babies arrived seven weeks early.
Nothing about the delivery happened the way we had planned.
One minute, doctors were calmly monitoring me.
The next, nurses were moving quickly around the room.
Someone said something about fetal distress.
Someone else mentioned an emergency C-section.
Gareth appeared beside me in surgical clothing.
“Look at me,” he said.
I was terrified.
“Gareth—”
“I’m here.”
“You promised.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“You promised we’d do this together.”
He pressed his forehead against mine.
“We will.”
Nell came first.
Tiny.
Angry.
Determined.
The nurse laughed when she heard her cry.
“That one has opinions.”
Amos arrived two minutes later.
Then Vera.
Vera did not cry immediately.
That silence remains one of the longest moments of my life.
“What’s happening?”
Nobody answered quickly enough.
“Why isn’t she crying?”
Gareth squeezed my hand.
Finally, I heard movement from across the room.
A nurse told me Vera needed help breathing.
I tried to lift my head.
“Can I see her?”
“Soon.”
All three babies spent time receiving specialized care.
My body felt destroyed.
The emergency surgery left me weak enough that sitting upright required effort. Every cough hurt. Every laugh hurt. Standing made my abdomen feel as though it were pulling apart.
But when I saw the babies, nothing else mattered.
Nell had Gareth’s nose.
Amos had dark hair.
Vera was the smallest and somehow the calmest.
Gareth stood beside their bassinets, crying openly.
“I love them so much,” he whispered.
I believed him.
I still believe he meant it in that moment.
But loving the idea of children, I would eventually learn, was not the same as accepting the work of raising them.
After weeks of medical appointments, feeding lessons, monitoring, and fear, we finally brought our babies home.
Our living room transformed overnight.
Three bassinets.
Bottles.
Blankets.
Diapers.
Formula.
A bottle sterilizer.
Burp cloths on every surface.
A play mat covered half the floor.
That first evening, Gareth stood in the middle of the room.
“We did it,” he said.
I looked at him.
“No.”
He frowned.
“No?”
“We brought them home.”
I smiled tiredly.
“Now we do it.”
He laughed.
At 1:14 that morning, all three babies started crying.
Not one after another.
Together.
Nell needed to eat.
Amos had soaked through his diaper.
Vera had reflux and refused to settle unless someone held her upright.
My incision burned as I pushed myself out of bed.
“Gareth.”
He groaned.
“Can you take Amos?”
He sat up slowly.
“Which one is Amos?”
I stared at him.
“The blue blanket.”
“Oh.”
He picked our son up awkwardly.
“What do I do?”
“Change him.”
“Right now?”
“He’s soaking wet.”
Gareth carried Amos toward the changing table.
I fed Nell while trying to soothe Vera with my free hand.
Ten minutes passed.
Amos was still fussing.
“What’s happening?” I called.
“I’m trying.”
When I walked over, Gareth was standing above the changing table holding an unfolded diaper.
Amos kicked his tiny legs.
“He keeps moving,” Gareth complained.
“He’s a newborn.”
“I’m scared I’ll hurt him.”
I looked at him.
I was exhausted.
My abdomen throbbed.
Milk had leaked through my shirt.
Vera was crying against my shoulder.
“So am I,” I said quietly. “But someone still has to care for him.”
Gareth looked ashamed.
“Okay.”
I stepped beside him.
“Here.”
I showed him how to position the diaper.
“How tight?”
“Two fingers underneath.”
He nodded seriously.
For one brief moment, I felt hopeful.
We were learning.
Together.
It was difficult, but difficult did not mean impossible.
At least that was what I told myself.
Two nights later, Gareth entered our bedroom carrying his pillow.
I was sitting upright with Vera against my chest while pumping milk.
Nell was crying in the bassinet.
Amos had just finished half a bottle.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“The guest room.”
I thought he was joking.
“Why?”
“I have a presentation tomorrow.”
“So?”
“So I need sleep.”
My hand froze.
“How long are you planning to sleep in there?”
“Until things become more normal.”
I looked around the room.
Three newborns.
Half-filled bottles.
Burp cloths.
A pumping machine.
My medication.
A feeding notebook.
“They are three days home, Gareth.”
“I know.”
“This is normal.”
He sighed.
“Maribel, I have to function at work.”
“And I have to function here.”
“You can sleep when they sleep.”
For several seconds, I simply looked at him.
“They don’t sleep at the same time.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
He rubbed his forehead impatiently.
“My salary pays the bills.”
I looked down at Vera sleeping against me.
“And my body is feeding three human beings.”
His expression tightened.
“Why are you turning this into an argument?”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re making me feel guilty for having responsibilities.”
My voice became very quiet.
“These are responsibilities too.”
Gareth said nothing.
Then he walked from the room.
A moment later, I heard the guest-room door close.
Nell started crying harder.
I looked down at Vera.
Then toward Amos.
Then at the empty doorway.
That was the first night I cared for all three of our children alone.
May you like
It would not be the last.
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