Power of Three

### James Fitzsimmons & Alex Kepler

My Nana Cindy and Papa Richard had 3 kids. My mom had 3 kids, my uncle Leonard had 3 kids and my Aunt Amelia, despite vowing not to have that many, also had 3 kids.

As the oldest of the cousins, and the only one currently married, there was a long running joke that I had to keep this tradition going.

I wasn’t against it, at all. Growing up with 2 siblings had been a lot of fun, but my wife, Alex, had grown up an only child. The idea of having more than one kid, let alone three, scared her. We agreed to start with one, and see how life went - but as … would have it, life loves to play jokes on you. A great reminder that no matter how much planning you put into your life, life tends to screw up your plans and throw them in your face.

Since finishing her PhD in biochemistry, Alex would often visit me at my campus lab.

One day, about mid-semester, she had a certain shine in her eyes when she visited. She tried not to spill her secret, instead asking me about my work, attempting to build suspense, but that didn’t last long.

“We’re having a baby!” she burst out.

A smile split my face, as I picked her up, spinning her in a circle.

No more work got done that day. Instead, I took the day off work, and we went home to celebrate with strawberry ice cream.

It was about 3 months until Christmas, so we decided to wait to tell our families until then. As hard as it was not to tell my mom our amazing news when we went over for Thanksgiving, we were well aware of the risks of pregnancy in the first couple months.

We had an ultrasound scheduled for the week after Thanksgiving.

“Remember, the doctor knows what he’s doing,” Alex said as we were walking in.

I rolled my eyes. Having PhDs in Biology and Biochemistry, and coming from a family of scientists, meant I often ended up asking the doctors too many questions and doubted them. Not that Alex didn’t do the same thing. - but I wasn’t about to argue with my pregnant wife.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fitzsimmons, right this way.” The nurse showed us to an exam room.  It surprisingly was not a long wait for the doctor, but I could tell that Alex was tense the whole time.

Another thing with being scientists, is that we have a tendency to research everything, which meant Alex and I had spent many evenings researching pregnancies and everything that could go wrong.

Our first sign that one of our fears might be realized was when the doctor’s brow furrowed as he was looking at the ultrasound.

The ultrasound wasn’t to figure out the gender, but rather just a health check.

“What’s wrong,” I finally asked, after seeing that Alex wasn’t going to.

He took a moment to answer.

“Let me take another look,”

It wasn’t much of an answer, but I had too many scenarios running through my head to demand a better one,   and I could tell Alex felt the same way. It was very unlike her to be quiet for this long, but the blood had drained from her face. I squeezed her hand.

“Good news,” the doctor said, turning the screen towards us, “your babies are okay.”

Alex processed what he said faster than I did.

“Babies?”

“That brings me to the other good news. You are having triplets.”

We were both in shock. 3 babies. This would be amazing. But how on earth were we going to raise three children that were all the same age.

The doctor showed us on the ultrasound the three fetuses.

It was at that point that Alex started to laugh.

“We couldn’t escape the power of three rule,” she said between laughs. “No matter how hard we tried,”

Her laugh was contagious, and we both soon had tears streaming down our cheeks. There was no escaping the three child rule in our family, apparently.

The doctor was definitely looking at us in concern, but he said he understood we must be shocked ti realize that our little family was about to more than double in size.

The apartment we were living in was not going to be able to house three babies. We knew that there were still plenty of risks over the next many months, and even more so now that there were multiple fetuses. But that didn’t stop us from starting to adapt our plans for the future. Originally, we were just going to put a crib in our bedroom, and look for a new place when the child was a bit older, but that no longer seemed to be an option.

…

We knew we had to make this pregnancy announcement special. I think my family may have already suspected a pregnancy at Thanksgiving, but I doubt any of them guessed this.

We decided to take advantage of the science-y background of the family.

Christmas dinner went as usual. It was a fairly large group this year, My parent and kid sister Angie, my brother Oliver and his girlfriend Louise, and my cousin Jessie and her new boyfriend Julian. Topics of conversation ranged from work to relatives to the Nobel Prize winners. Every single person at the table was a scientist of some sort.

We were all scattered around the living room that evening. Oliver was showing dad and Jessie the new robot he had been working on. Angie was begging us to open gifts, and mom and Alex were talking about biochemistry.

I pulled a file from my bag.

“Hey mum, would you look over something for me for work?” This was not an unusual request. She was one of the top biochemists in the country, if not the world.

“Sure, what’s it on?”

I handed her the file. Angie read over her shoulder.

*Results from Experiment Sept 23, 1421*

*Dr. James Fitzsimmons and Dr. Alex Kepler*

“What sort of experiment is this for?” Mum asked, glancing at the ultrasounds on the next page.

Angie reacted first.

“You’re pregnant?” she signed. I translated for Alex while grinning. Alex nodded with a smile.

Having heard the announcement, everyone else suddenly crowded around in congratulations. With Oliver claiming he had guessed it.

My mum still hadn’t said anything, and was still looking at the file.

According to these files,” everyone quieted down as she started talking and signing, “there are three sepaertae images of three separate fetuses.”

As she was saying this, I saw it click in her brain.

“You’re having triplets?” She exclaimed, and suddenly everyone needed to look at the ultrasounds to verify, and there was a whole other round of congratulations.

“3 children, here we go again,” Oliver laughed.

“Well you’re next,” I teased, nodding at Louise, whom he still hadn’t asked for her hand in marriage, despite being in love with her for years.

“Jessie’s next,” he corrected, “she is the next oldest Simmons”

I looked around at my family. If this 3 children thing continues over the next generation, in 20 years or so this same Christmas party will have 3 times as many people.

5 months later, Alex and I welcomed into the world, babies Kiaron, Madison, and Everett.