Welcome to the World

It began with a dull ache low in her back—a throbbing pulse that came and went like a tide. At first, Ariella dismissed it. She was only thirty-four weeks. It was probably Braxton Hicks or the strain of sitting too long at her desk.

But when the ache intensified into something sharper, stealing her breath and clenching her abdomen in waves, she knew something was wrong.

"Sasha," she gasped over the phone, one hand gripping the edge of her bed, the other pressed against her swollen belly. "I think…I think something's happening."

Panic crackled in her best friend's voice. "You're early. Are you sure it's not—"

Another contraction hit. Ariella bit down a scream, her body bowing with the force of it, sweat prickling along her spine.

"Okay, okay. Hospital. Now."

The world blurred after that.

Sasha arrived within minutes, breathless and half-dressed in an oversized hoodie, her hair wild from sleep, crocs slapping against the concrete stairs. She didn't hesitate. She knelt beside Ariella, her hands trembling as she helped her out of bed.

"I've got you," Sasha murmured, looping an arm under Ariella's shoulders. "We're going to the hospital. Just breathe."

Getting down the stairs was a war. Each step brought a fresh contraction that stole the air from Ariella's lungs. Her knees buckled twice, her fingers digging into Sasha's arm hard enough to bruise. But Sasha held on, guiding her like a lifeline through the storm.

By the time they reached the car, Ariella's legs were jelly. Her belly felt like it might split open from the pressure. Every bump in the road sent fire rippling through her lower half. She moaned, curled sideways in the passenger seat, clutching her stomach.

"Almost there," Sasha said again and again, speeding through yellow lights and barely noticing the blaring horns around them. "Just hang on."

The emergency entrance loomed like salvation.

Nurses swarmed the moment Sasha screamed for help, their voices cutting through the haze.

"How far along?"

"Any bleeding?"

"Multiple gestation, you said?"

A wheelchair appeared. Ariella collapsed into it, gripping the armrests like a woman about to be launched into orbit. The hallway lights above her streaked into one long, dizzying blur. The smell of antiseptic, rubber gloves, and latex clung to the walls.

The monitors beeped in steady rhythm once she was in triage. A kind-faced nurse dabbed a cool cloth against her burning forehead.

"You're going into labor, sweetheart. We're going to try to slow it, but the babies are coming."

Ariella barely heard her. Pain pulsed through her in violent waves now, overtaking her thoughts, her breath, her world.

She sobbed once—just once—before biting it back.

This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not yet.

She wasn't ready.

But they were coming anyway.

The next few hours were a surreal blur of flashing lights and screaming nerves. Doctors flooded in and out of her room like a current, barking instructions, inserting IVs, checking heart rates—hers and the babies'. A fetal monitor thumped rhythmically in the background, and every time it dipped or skipped, panic cracked open in her chest.

Sasha was there, the entire time. She never let go of Ariella's hand, even when the contractions grew so intense Ariella thought she might pass out.

"You're doing amazing," Sasha whispered again and again, her other hand brushing sweat-soaked curls from Ariella's face. "You're so strong, babe. You've got this."

Ariella didn't feel strong. She felt torn open. She felt like her body had become a battlefield—each contraction a cannon blast. She screamed once, then again, teeth grinding against the agony. Nurses moved quickly, adjusting drips, calling out dilations.

"Seven centimeters. She's progressing fast."

"Prep the OR. We might need to move now."

Everything shifted then.

The doctors decided on an emergency cesarean.

The room transformed in minutes—curtains whisked open, machines rolled in, gowns thrown over her, surgical gloves snapped tight.

The operating room was cold. Sterile. The metal of the bed bit into her spine. A nurse squeezed her hand as another administered the spinal block. The anesthetic crawled up her legs like ice, numbing everything below her chest. A curtain was drawn just below her breasts.

Ariella could feel pressure—tugging, pulling—but no pain.

Then she heard it.

A cry.

Thin. Fragile. Beautiful.

She froze.

Then another.

And another.

Three cries, overlapping, weak and warbled like flutes with missing notes. Three voices—high and trembling—sliced through the air like angels singing in disharmony.

Tears broke free from the corners of Ariella's eyes and slid down her temples into her hairline. Her heart cracked open.

"Baby A—boy. Two pounds, nine ounces."

"Baby B—boy. Two pounds, twelve ounces."

"Baby C—boy. Two pounds, five."

The voices came like echoes in a tunnel, muffled and too fast. Words that should have been cause for celebration were delivered like coordinates in a battlefield. She caught fragmented glimpses—limbs pale as porcelain, cords slick with afterbirth, tiny fists trembling in the cold fluorescent light—before each baby was carried away.

She didn't get to kiss their foreheads or count their fingers. She didn't get the slow, sacred moment of holding her sons against her chest, soaking in the warmth and the weight of life just created. There was no lullaby playing, no partner at her side, no proud announcement to the world. Just the rustle of medical gowns, the hiss of machines, and the solemn urgency of the neonatal team.

But they were here.

Caleb. Caden. Cole.

The names she'd spoken into the darkness of her apartment, whispered through tear-choked prayers and long, sleepless nights. Names she'd etched into notebook margins and scribbled onto birth plan drafts. Names she had loved long before she saw the first flutter of movement on the ultrasound screen.

And now—those names had faces. Bodies. Heartbeats.

Though fleeting, her first sight of them scorched itself into her soul. Their chests heaved with shallow, uneven breaths. Skin stretched thin over tiny bones. They were impossibly small—each the size of a kitten, a trembling miracle barely tethered to life by tubes and wires.

They were rushed to the NICU in a flurry of purposeful movement. And then—silence.

Ariella was left on the operating table, a sterile curtain still drawn across her lower half, the hollow ache in her womb expanding into every corner of her being. Her arms felt useless. Her heart too full and too shattered all at once.

She barely registered being wheeled into recovery. Sasha was there, appearing beside her like a spirit conjured by love and fear, still in the hoodie she'd thrown on in a panic, mascara streaked down her cheeks.

"They're okay," Sasha whispered, wiping Ariella's damp brow with trembling hands. "They're tiny. But they're okay. Breathing. Fighting."

Ariella blinked up at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights blurring at the edges. "I didn't even… see their faces."

"You will," Sasha said, her voice suddenly fierce. "Tomorrow. They said you can go up after your vitals stabilize. Just rest now, okay? You did the hardest part."

But rest felt like betrayal. How could she sleep while pieces of her heart lay in incubators down the hall?

That night, she lay in a too-white hospital bed, the thin blanket tucked around her like a veil of detachment. Her hand hovered over her stomach, now soft and hollow. She pressed down gently, instinctively, and the absence of movement was unbearable.

Every cell in her body screamed to be near them.

She couldn't sleep.

She imagined their cries. Wondered what they sounded like. Had they been afraid? Had they felt the separation, the instant they were pulled into the world and taken from her?

She imagined their warmth—soft skin tucked into her collarbone, the weight of their heads against her heart. It had been stolen from her, that first moment of connection.

But the pain of not holding them was nothing compared to the fear coiling in her chest.

How was she supposed to do this?

How do you mother three preemies alone?

Later that night, when the hospital wing had hushed into shadows and monitors beeped softly in rhythm, a nurse came in quietly.

"You're cleared for a brief NICU visit," she said with a gentle smile. "Want to go see your boys?"

Tears sprang to Ariella's eyes.

The wheelchair felt too big, too slow, but she didn't care. She gripped the armrests with white-knuckled desperation as she was wheeled through corridors that blurred into pastel-colored panic.

The NICU was another world—quiet but intense, clinical but intimate. Machines lined the walls, tubes snaked through the air like tangled ivy. The lights were dimmed, the temperature colder than she expected, but the emotional heat was overwhelming.

She scrubbed her hands raw, donned a gown and mask, and then—

There he was.

Caleb. Baby A.

Her firstborn by mere minutes.

His incubator glowed with a soft blue light. He lay on a tiny folded blanket, wires branching from his chest to a monitor that tracked his heart. His fists were curled like unopened blossoms, and his legs trembled with the effort of being alive.

Ariella's breath caught in her throat. He was the size of her hand. She pressed it gently to the side of the incubator, aching to touch him.

"I'm your mom," she whispered, voice thick with wonder and grief. "Hi, baby. I've waited so long to meet you."

Then came Caden.

Baby B.

He was slightly bigger, his cheeks rounder. One tiny foot kicked once before settling again, the heart monitor spiking with each small movement. His mouth opened in a silent yawn.

Ariella let out a breathless laugh. "Hi, sweet boy."

And finally—Cole. Baby C.

The smallest. The last.

He looked like a feathered thing—fragile and translucent, his chest barely rising. But when the nurse leaned close, he opened his eyes.

Slate-gray. Wide. Searching.

Ariella lost whatever was left of her composure. She sobbed quietly into her mask, one hand pressed to the plastic casing.

"I'm here," she whispered. "Mama's here.

That night, when she returned to her room, her soul felt both shattered and filled.

She had seen them.

She had survived the fear. Now came the reality.

The days that followed blurred into a strange rhythm—like a song with no melody.

Mornings began in the NICU. Ariella took notes during rounds, asking doctors questions she never imagined learning the answers to: blood gas levels, CPAP machines, donor milk fortification.

Afternoons were for remote tutoring, hunched over her laptop with sore breasts and an aching back. In the evenings, she pumped religiously, labeling bags with shaking hands and storing them in the hospital fridge.

Her entire existence narrowed to four-hour intervals: visit, pump, nap, repeat.

She learned how to do "kangaroo care"—placing a baby against her bare chest for hours to help regulate their breathing and heartbeat. It was terrifying the first time, holding Caleb's warm body against her skin, wires still attached.

But then his heart monitor slowed. His breathing evened out.

And she knew: This is what we were made for.

She sang softly when no one was watching—"You Are My Sunshine," broken and off-key. She read pages of her thesis aloud beside their incubators, telling them about the world, about Shakespeare and symbolism and irony.

Some days, she wept in the hospital bathroom.

Some nights, she didn't sleep at all.

And just when she thought she couldn't possibly stretch any further—life did what it always did.

It stretched her more.

Then came the letter.

Folded neatly. Slipped under her apartment door. University letterhead.

Her advisor.

Ariella's eyes scanned it once. Twice. And then again.

Missed deadlines. Insufficient progress. If she could not submit the revised thesis by the end of the semester, her graduation would be deferred. Possibly terminated.

She clutched the paper like a threat. Her chest caved in.

Her boys needed her. Every second. Every breath. And yet, her future—the very thing she fought for—was slipping.

She collapsed onto the couch, pressing her forehead to her knees.

"God, how do I do this?" she whispered.

No one answered.

But later that night, standing between Caleb and Cole, watching them sleep in side-by-side cribs, she found her answer.

"You hang on," she said quietly. "You show up."

Because they had. Despite every odd. Every statistic. They had shown up, alive.

And now—she would too.

Caleb came home first. A few weeks later, Caden followed. And then, after a scare that kept him another week, little Cole arrived last.

The nursery was no longer a place of stillness. It was full of cries, warmth, bottles, diapers, lullabies, and desperation.

Ariella ran on three hours of sleep, bags under her eyes, and a chest full of determination.

She was terrified. Every sneeze. Every hiccup. Every odd breath.

But she learned.

And when she held them—one on each arm, one against her chest—the world finally felt like it made sense.

She hadn't planned for this.

She hadn't been ready.

But love had come anyway.

And it came in threes.