Page 41 of Pucking Christmas Triplets Surprise

A small man, with thick black hair and purple scrubs comes up to us with his hand out as if he is calming a feral animal. “Sir, what’s wrong?”

A gurney slides up next to us, and I place Josie down as I speak. “I don’t know. One minute she was fine, next she was clutching her stomach, bleeding.”

“Are you the husband?” He asks, pressing his hand into her side, causing an ear splitting howl that makes me growl at the doctor.

“Stop.”

“I have to evaluate what’s wrong.” The doctor narrows his eyes on me. “Are you the husband?”

“Yes.” I snap, and the doctor nods in the direction of the double doors.

“Uncle Chris?” Abby sniffles, the fear clear on her eyes.

“Call Uncle Caleb, he will take you home.”

“Uncle-” She begins to protest, but the look in my eyes shuts her up.

“Call him, now.” I growl, as the doctor begins to rush. Josie to the back.

Josie white-knuckle grips the forearm of the doctor, her eyes wide and lips fading to blue. “T-the baby. Please check for the-”

Josie screams, cutting off the rest of her words, and I have to jog to keep up with them, but, no matter what any of the nurses say around me, my brain homes in on the words that just left Josie’s lips.Baby. Check the baby.Fear so deep it makes my skin cold, and joy so high I feel like I am floating.

My heart pounds relentlessly in my chest, echoing Josie’s pained cries and Abby’s sobs in my ears. I can’t think, I can barely breathe .

The nurses and doctors bark orders at one another, their voices blending into a frantic chorus, but Josie’s wide, terrified eyes are locked onto mine as they put an IV into her left arm.

“Chris,” she whimpers, her voice breaking. “I-I-”

“I’m right here,” I whisper, forcing my voice to stay steady, even as fear threatens to swallow me whole. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The medical team rushes Josie into an examinationroom, and I’m pushed back just as a doctor approaches. “We need to run an ultrasound to see what’s going on,” he says.

Josie gasps, her hands clutching her abdomen, and the doctor gently moves the probe over her flat belly. The room falls into a thick, suffocating silence, broken only by Josie’s uneven breathing and the steady thump of the heart monitor.

And then, a rhythmic, miraculous sound fills the room: the echoing, overlapping heartbeats of... more than one baby.

The doctor’s eyes widen, and he looks at us, stunned. “The babies are fine,” he says, his voice tinged with awe. “It’s common for moms having multiples to bleed and experience pain. I would say it’s probably just Uterine stretching. Triplets are a high risk pregnancy, but you are young so a little less so.”

“Multiple?” I cough out looking down at Josie’s fearful eyes.

“Triplets?” she whispers, her voice cracking. “Oh my God...what does that mean for skating?”

“You figure skate?” The doctor questions, looking closer at the ultrasound.

“Yes.”

“Early stages only, but once these babies drop it would increase the danger of miscarrying.” The doctor nods, looking at us with a thin lipped smile.

“What’s considered early stages?” I question, because if this man is saying Josie will have to give up her dreams for these babies. I don’t know what I will do, or say. I want these babies, I do, but the thought of her sacrificing her future for them… I can’t. She’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself.

The doctor looks at me carefully. “The first trimester—up to 12 weeks—is consideredearly stages. After that, the risks decrease somewhat, but if you push too hard physically, the chances of complications go up. For someone as active as Josie, you’ll need to take extra care as her body changes.”

“And can she skate in her second trimester?” I ask, my hand resting on Josie’s shoulder and squeezing when she starts to shake.

The doctor nods thoughtfully. “In general, the second trimester is the safest period for physical activity, but it depends on how Josie feels. If she’s comfortable and there are no signs of complications, light skating could be okay. However, I’d strongly recommend avoiding high-impact moves or anything that could risk a fall. It’s best to err on the side of caution. Her body will be going through a lot of changes, so she’ll need to listen to her body and take it easy.”

“And how long is recovery after birth?” I manage to ask, hoping to get a sense of how much time she might need to regain her strength. If the Olympics are fifteen months from now, and if Josie wants then the gold is still ours, babies and all.

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