We Had Triplets — And Now We’re Thinking of Giving One Away (2 of 2)

I catch myself staring at him some nights. He used to be so patient, so calm. Now I see the way his shoulders tense when all three start crying at once. I see the panic in his eyes. And I know he sees the same in mine.

We whisper to each other in the dark, the words slipping out like confessions. “What if we can’t do this? What if it’s too much? What if… we gave one up?”

Even writing that makes me feel like a monster. Who thinks that? Who holds their baby, counts tiny fingers and tiny toes, and then wonders if they’re supposed to hand that baby over to someone else?

But when the bills pile up, when I’m eating peanut butter crackers for dinner because we can’t afford take-out anymore, when I catch myself resenting the sound of my own children’s cries… I wonder if love is really enough.

The truth is, I’m scared. I’m scared that in trying to give all three of them everything, I’ll give them nothing. I’m scared that in trying to be the perfect mother, I’m failing at being any kind of mother at all.

The people on social media don’t tell you about this part. They don’t tell you about the guilt that gnaws at you when you imagine one of your babies growing up in another woman’s arms. They don’t tell you how ugly it feels to want less of what so many women would give anything to have.

And yet here I am, rocking one baby on the edge of my bed, listening to the other two wail, watching my husband press his palms into his eyes like he’s about to break. My heart is torn in three directions at once, and still, I feel like I’m drowning.

So maybe this is my confession, raw and unvarnished: we had triplets… and now we’re wondering if love means letting one go. Because last night, as the cries grew louder and the bottle warmer beeped again, I looked down at the tiny face in my arms and thought the unthinkable.

What if the kindest thing I could do… is say goodbye?