Three Heartbeats I Never Heard
“You have triple occupancy. There’s no heartbeat… so you will need to return to the hospital to deliver your babies tomorrow.”
Those were the words that would mark me forever.
But let’s back up a little.
I was twenty-two, full of plans, and on my way to South Korea to teach English. For the past couple of years, I’d been living in Mexico, teaching English there, and it was in Mexico that I met my then-boyfriend, Hugo. We had built a life together—small, chaotic, sun-soaked—but I had a bigger goal: to pay off my student loans. The quickest way seemed to be joining a few friends in Korea who were already teaching there. The plan was simple: I’d go ahead, settle in, and Hugo would join me later.
Before heading to Asia, I flew home to Canada to visit my family and submit my application to the school. I was accepted almost immediately, and I felt like my future was unfurling exactly as I’d imagined—until I got the news that I was pregnant.
It was a shock in itself. Plans of moving abroad were abruptly rewritten. Hugo and I decided I would stay in Canada for the pregnancy, and he would join me there.
I’m not going to lie - at first, it was an unwanted pregnancy. I wasn’t ready. My life was supposed to be just starting, not slowing down. Having babies had never been in my plans. I wanted to travel the world, own my business, be my own boss…babies were not part of my immediate future plans.
But as weeks passed, I began to love the tiny life growing inside me. Hugo remained in Mexico for the first five months, and I told myself over and over that this was what I wanted: the relationship, the pregnancy, the baby. A future rooted in Canada.
But every night, when the lights went out, I cried myself to sleep. I was brainwashing myself that I wanted this life but deep down, I was so unhappy and sad.
The week Hugo finally arrived was the same week we had our first ultrasound scheduled. Midweek, while soaking in the bath, I casually mentioned that something felt off—that I hadn’t felt the baby move all day. Until that moment, I had no reason to believe anything was wrong. I’d been to every routine doctor’s appointment, heard a steady heartbeat each time, and trusted that everything was unfolding as it should.
What I didn’t know then was that I wasn’t carrying one baby. I was carrying three.
Friday night, October 26, 2001, I walked into the doctor’s office expecting a routine check-up after my first ultrasound. Instead, I was told I was pregnant with triplets—and that none of them had a heartbeat anymore. The words didn’t seem to land. My body went into some kind of survival mode, a numb, automatic resilience.
The next morning, I returned to the hospital, stepping into a day suspended in uncertainty. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and the smell of antiseptic clung to the air. The doctor explained that no one could predict how the delivery would unfold. Would my body let go on its own? Would they have to intervene with a C-section? Would I need pain medication? Would it take five hours… twelve… thirty-six? There were no answers—only possibilities.
So, we waited.
My family arrived, along with my two closest friends. They stayed with me, filling the sterile room with their quiet presence. The vinyl chairs squeaked when someone shifted. The rhythmic beep of a monitor in the hallway was the only sign of time moving forward. Conversations rose and faded. Coffee cups cooled in people’s hands. Outside, the hours slipped past, but inside, time felt heavy, like it was holding its breath.
When the moment finally came, the room seemed impossibly still. At just five months pregnant, I delivered my three babies—Jonatan, Sofia, and Énock. They were impossibly small and perfect, their skin soft like the inside of a seashell. I held each one, memorizing every curve of their faces, because I knew I would not see them again. Then they were gone, sent to Montreal for autopsy, leaving my arms—and my world—empty.
For years, I thought they had come into my life only to leave it, that their story ended in that quiet hospital room. But now I know they were more than my loss—they were my rescue.
I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was already drowning in a relationship that was breaking me in ways I couldn’t name. My babies, in their brief time here, became my lifeline. They interrupted the path I was on, pulling me away from a life that would have consumed me.
They never took their first breath, yet they gave me mine back. They came not just to be loved, but to protect me, to free me, to save me from a future I was never meant to live. And even in their absence, they have never stopped saving me.
je vous aime mes bébés!
In love and light, ❤️🦋✨
Nat
