Three Heartbeats
By Kristen Kaiser
There are three heartbeats, the doctor said. He pushed the ultrasound wand through the cold gel repeatedly, showing us the wild fluttering of tiny hearts. I stared in sheer awe and panic at the sonogram. The doctor, so calm in his pressed button-down and white lab coat, pointed to the screen with a well-manicured hand as he rolled over the ghostly images, directing us to three distinct amoebas floating in the darkness. Independent, defined by the negative space around them. My womb now holding the promise of a whole family. At once.
There are three heartbeats. That incomprehensible sentence still lives somewhere in my body. It floats around, a free radical. Glowing, beautiful, and objectively terrifying. Twenty years later, when I close my eyes, I can still see that Rorschach ultrasound image—silvery filament glowing coolly on the back of my eyelids.
For my husband and me, procreation was a battle to be won: operations, medications, and multiple rounds of IVF. I felt like a secret science experiment, ground zero for the team of doctors mining my body, mapping with precision the timed shots, oral medications, ultrasounds, and endometrial lining measurements. Culminating in a batch of raw life, embryos with the potential to become animal lovers, professional troublemakers, poets and tree climbers, messy and creative free spirits, serious contemplative world travelers, and unintentional comedians.
The creation of life for us felt both magical and medical. At times painful and maddening, giving myself hormone shots in public bathrooms in between meetings at work, the mood swings and bruises blooming along my backside. The sweet potential of parenthood so potent as to keep us reaching, while simultaneously asking ourselves, why are we doing this? Our last round of embryos required a letting go of this irrational desire to see ourselves in the face of our child. It was our last chance, and we felt a strange sense of relief. The outcome was out of our hands now; we could be free of the reaching, and get back to the living. We prayed to all the gods we could conjure, at an altar in our bedroom, which was set up for all things fertility. Lit candles that burned with the curling fragrance of sandalwood, Ylang Ylang, and Lavender. A small statue of the Hindu goddess of fertility, her belly the focus of ritual rubbing and fertile mumblings. A cross, a carved Elephant. A menagerie of religious artifacts, totems, and offerings. The spiritual kitchen-sink approach.
Turns out, someone was listening, though I think the Hindu goddess may have been a bridge too far. The shock of triplets was complicated by my overwhelming anxiety. I struggled to process this impending reality while managing my fear. Who knows how to manage giving birth to a litter of children? This seemed socially inconceivable and medically dubious. Could I seriously grow three humans simultaneously and bring them into the world, healthy and whole?
My husband refused to entertain all the ways this could go horribly wrong, fully committed to engaging in extravagant levels of pathological optimism. In keeping with their improbable inception, all three babies had issues with their cords not being fully attached to their placentas. Throughout the pregnancy they defied the odds once again, hanging on precariously. One push, one misplaced foot or elbow, could have separated them from this fragile ecosystem we all inhabited. The stakes felt impossibly high.
After spending 6 weeks in the hospital on bedrest to monitor contractions, the babies were born at thirty-four weeks. We emerged from the hospital, after two months in a cocoon of beeps, drips, and quiet, anxious contemplation. Shifts of nurses so familiar I could identify their walk before they entered the room, shoes squeaking on shiny, polished floors. Leaving the safety net of those wonderful women who kept us all alive, I felt so vulnerable, as though I were in a foreign country with no map or understanding of the language. That first night, we hovered over their tiny, swaddled bodies, lined up in one crib like little burritos. Listening in the quiet for their breaths and baby animal sounds.
To say we were overwhelmed bringing three newborns into our little bungalow on Juniper Street is an understatement. It was surreal. We needed a plan, and we had learned that organization was our key to survival. We kept those babies on a strict eat-sleep-play schedule as though our life depended on it. When my husband left for work in the morning, I vividly remember thinking this is it, this will be the day I can’t pull this off. My body was awash in anxiety. This is terrifying, there are too many of them. I needed to focus on the next step, put my head down, and not think too much. After the first round of feeding, changing, dressing, playing, and napping, my heart crawled back down into my chest. My mantra of positive affirmations tapered off to the occasional, “Hell yeah, I’ve got this.”
As our family grew, along with our confidence, milestones began to pass us by. Our toddlers were not talking. Or pointing. Or playing. Worries began creeping in, whispers of delays, and conditions. No one wanted to point out that something was amiss, after all we had been through.
“Well, they were preemies, so of course they’re a little behind…”
“Jenna’s son Max didn’t talk until he was three. And he is totally fine now…”
“They must have their own way of communicating, don’t multiples have a secret language?”
“They will catch up, you worry too much…”
Despite all of the well-intentioned explanations, in their toddler years, new sentences came to live in my body. Baby C has autism. Baby A has autism. Baby B has autism. They burrowed in deep, radiating bursts of fear and shame. Those words felt life-altering, loaded with fear for the future.
We were no longer triumphant. No longer strong and capable. We were flawed parents. Blinded by those words, I struggled to understand how to navigate the world of disability supports and services. I spent those early years crawling out from under the crushing weight of an uncertain future. Someone told me once that grief and disability are familiar bedfellows. You don't move through the stages and leave them behind. In the world of autism parenting, you walk through those rooms again and again.
Every time there was a birthday party, one of my children sat in the corner and spun the wheels of an overturned bike. Another had a meltdown over the noise, while the third bit the birthday boy.
While other moms spent weekends on the sidelines of soccer fields with Starbucks and playdate plans, I sat in therapy waiting rooms, doing intake assessments and making insurance calls.
Whenever our early intervention team celebrated a new word, a noodle picked up from a plate in a pincer grasp, or a successful tap on the shoulder to get someone’s attention, I only felt fear in my bones. These little milestones were glaring evidence of the widening chasm between my children and their peers. I was lost at sea.
For years we immersed ourselves in behavioral strategies and visual schedules, academic support, Speech, OT, acupuncture, and special diets. We lived our lives swinging from therapies and evaluations to backyard camping and select family gatherings–surrounding ourselves with the family that got our life and could tolerate our therapeutic approach to parenting. Despite, and maybe in part because of all our angst, sadness, fear, love, laughter, and near-constant worry, our children thrived and developed. They became smart, funny, and so kind. Navigating their own challenges in young adulthood, my job now is helping them come to terms with who they are, and appreciate their differences. Their path has been difficult, and there are still many challenges, but our kids are full of heart and curiosity in a world I think may not deserve them. But sometimes, the labels they carry still burn deep for them.
Ultimately, what transformed those wounds into pride and belonging for me, has been the most powerful antidote to isolation: fellow travelers. Finding other parents from our weird little planet. Laughing so hard you cry over things that are objectively sad and hard — developing a hard shell but inviting others underneath to shelter in place when the winds are threatening to take you all out. You know your kindred spirits when you see them.
That mom you knew in preschool when you were wide-eyed and terrified, who also had a child that didn’t fit, who struggled in ways that had you both sweating fear. Who now sits next to her eighteen year-old son at the open house for Transitions Services after High School.
Here we are, still. I see you, her eyes say. I am with you. Blink twice if you are ok…
That mom from the social skills group waiting room, who sat with you two hours every week for a year, bringing books for each other, and ideas to get our kids to eat something new. How those siblings doing homework on the floor in reception became friends too, silently hoping their brothers learned how to make friends so they didn’t have to grow up in these rooms with donated couches, and posters with depressingly positive affirmations on the walls.
That mom you could call with a broken heart when a new diagnosis came along, or a medication brought awful side effects, or your child was suspended from school for overflowing the toilets just to watch the water rise and spill onto the floor. Again. That mom who could listen and sit with you in the swirl of those hard moments, and have you laughing at the absurdity of this life by the end of the call.
These mothers have made the journey bearable, and at times, downright joyous. Whether we are ships passing with a flash of recognition or building lifelong partnerships, it’s about opening your heart. Being vulnerable, our deepest fears revealed. Taking shelter, and giving and finding acceptance. It is about knowing that our suffering did not make us special or alone, just human. On a different path with its unique brand of beauty, one that is filled with the best people, helping you feel the rightness of your children.
That is what I wish for all fellow travelers. That in the deepest part of you, underneath the muscle and bone, deep down into the pulsing, pumping heart of you, you see the beauty in this different life, and how those we love are perfect.
Loved into existence, out of literal thin air.
Not meant to be fixed.
Kristen Kaiser is a writer born and raised on a small island off the coast of New Jersey. She currently resides in Colorado with her husband, her 21-year-old, neurodivergent triplet sons, and their somewhat indifferent corgi/terrier mix, Simon. Kristen works as a consultant and advisor for organizations that support the autism community both nationally and internationally. She received a BA in English from UC Santa Barbara, an MLA in English Literature from Harvard University, and a Master of Public Health from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Kristen writes across genres, but her first love is poetry. She was published in the anthology Split Verse, Poems to Heal Your Heart. She is currently working on her forthcoming novel, The Indigo Frequency.