She started talking, but I couldn’t seem to listen to a thing she was saying. My mind was buzzing and reeling with so many questions, so many thoughts, so many worries.
Triplets? We are having fucking triplets? How are we supposed to raise three babies if we are both busy, either working or at school for eight hours a day? One of us will have to stay home—I will have to be the one to stay home. How am I going to finish school? Will I get to finish school?
“Mia?” Michael asked. “Are you okay? You’re white.”
“We’re having three babies? There’s no more, is there?” I asked the doctor.
She gave me a huge smile and shook her head.
“Breathe, Mia,” Michael said to me, stroking my knee.
“Michael, how are we going to raise three kids?” I asked, my heart beating faster and faster, my chest tightening in fear. Deep down, I knew that we could, but it was going to be a lot of work. And by a lot, I meant,A LOT.
Since Melissa was pregnant, too, she was going to need someone to take care of her baby when she went to work. Being a single mother was tough; I’d watched Mom do it for so long … but watching four babies? Who was going to be able to do that alone?
The doctor excused herself and shut the door behind her.
“Three babies, Michael,” I whispered, shaking my head. “That’s so many. What are we going to do?”
Michael cupped my face in his soft hands. “Breathe,” he told me again, this timedemandingI did so.
I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to clear my mind.
“We will figure it out. We always do. I already told you that I’m going to ask my boss for a work-from-home position, so I can watch the kids while you go to school.”
“But, Michael, I …”
“You what, Mia? What’s wrong?”
I gnawed on the inside of my lip. “I’m scared,” I whispered. “What if I’m a bad mom? What if I can’t take care of three babies? I’m going to have to pushthreeof them out of …” I gestured to my vagina and scrunched up my nose.
“Wewill be taking care of three babies, not you,” Michael said, trying to get it through my head that I wasn’t alone in this, like my mom had been. He would be there for me every step of the way, and he’d take his responsibility seriously, unlike Dad or Mason.
My lips trembled, and he brushed his thumb against them.
“We’ll get through this. It’ll be difficult, but think about having three babies of our own. A small little family. Watching them grow up together, go off to school, play sports, graduate.”
I softened my rigid gaze and leaned into his touch.
Three kids … we were really having three kids.
CHAPTER7
MIA
“Three?!” Melissa asked, jaw dropped to her chest. She grabbed a cart and walked with me into Babies-4-Days, a local shop that only sold baby items. “Holy fuck. Mia, that’s so many. How are you going to take care of them, all while going to school?”
I blew out a deep breath. “I don’t know. I’m kinda freaking out. Michael says he’s going to see if he can work from home, but I don’t know if his boss will let him. And … ugh …” I blew out another breath, full of steam today. “And my wedding dress isn’t going to fit right—I just know it. I feel like everything is so close and coming up so quickly.”
“You could move the wedding back, you know,” she said, pushing the cart down an aisle. “It won’t hurt. You can still go on your honeymoon now and have a wedding later.”
My lips curled into a frown. We’d already booked the venue, made some food arrangements, sent out invites, even had a meeting with Hailey, the wedding planner, on Saturday. Everything was set in place. I didn’t want to cancel it now. Sure, we could move it back to next year … but things would still be stressful, maybe even more so then.
We walked farther into the store, each pushing a cart, and stared at the little baby clothes.
Melissa picked one up and smiled at me. “How cute is this?” she asked. “Look at these little booties.”
I smiled and found a couple outfits specifically for twins.Do they have any triplet ones?If anyone did, I’d probably have to order it online. I put it into the cart anyway and stared at the entire list of things Michael wanted me to look at while we were here. He’d said to get what I wanted and that we’d come back and get some other essentials later.
