When Andre won that luxury cruise through his company, we both cried.
“It’s our dream, Simone,” he said, holding my hands across our kitchen table in Ridgeport. “Two weeks, first class, the whole Caribbean. We finally get a real honeymoon.”
We’d been trying for a baby for three years by then — two rounds of IVF, more disappointment than either of us knew how to carry gracefully. That cruise felt like the universe finally throwing us a bone.
Two weeks later, my doctor looked at my ultrasound and went quiet in a way that made my stomach drop.
“Triplets,” she said. “And you need bed rest immediately. This is a high-risk pregnancy, Simone. No exceptions.”
I. A Chance Like This Comes Once in a Lifetime
I thought Andre would cancel the trip. I really did.
Instead, he packed his suitcase two days before departure and said, “Baby, a chance like this comes once in a lifetime. Castellane Furniture only gives out the grand prize every five years. I’ll be back before you know it.”
I smiled through tears at Ridgeport International Airport and told him to send pictures. What else could I do — beg a grown man not to take a trip he’d earned? I didn’t know yet that the two-week company prize was only the beginning of what he had planned.
The first two weeks, he texted often. Photos of turquoise water, a formal dinner, a magician on deck. Then, after the ship’s official company-sponsored leg ended in San Delmar, an easygoing island nation known for its wedding chapels and quick tourist marriage licenses, his messages slowed down.
“I met some people,” he told me over a crackly video call. “A couple from Atlanta invited me to extend the trip with them for a few more months, see some more islands. I already used some of our savings to book it. I know it’s a lot, Simone, but I need this. I’ve been so stressed about the babies.”
I was six months pregnant with triplets, confined to my bed by doctor’s orders, and my husband needed a few more months of vacation to de-stress. I didn’t have the strength to fight him from a hospital bed. My mother and my sister Denise moved into my guest room instead, and together, the three of us got ready for three babies alone.
II. Four Months
For four months, I waited.
