those contractions for now.”
“For now?”
Dr. Shah pulled a chair closer.
She didn’t pretend certainty where there wasn’t any, and something about that made me trust her.
“With a triplet pregnancy at twenty-eight weeks, we’re careful about promises. Right now, all three babies have strong heart rates. You’re stable. We’re giving you medication to help protect them in case delivery becomes necessary, antibiotics because of the ruptured membrane, and we’ll monitor you very closely.”
“Could they stay inside longer?”
“That’s what we’re hoping.”
I gripped the blanket.
“How much longer?”
“Every safe day matters.”
That sentence became the first thing I understood about my new life.
Not months.
Not years.
Days.
Sometimes hours.
You stopped asking the future to guarantee itself.
You took the safe day it gave you.
There was a knock on the half-open door.
A woman in her late thirties stepped inside carrying a folder and
