Today, I had a midday meet-up with a college friend who was in town for her kids’ winter break. They came into the city to have a quick midday snack with me before driving back up to Boston. Her kids are obsessed with the American Dream Mall, so they visit about once a year during a school break. I’ve been able to see her both last year and the year before for dinner while I was in Boston for work, but both times, it was just herself. This time, I got to see not just her, but her husband and all three of their kids! The last time I saw her husband was before they even got married. And I was excited to meet all three of her mini-mes today.

The two older kids were very sweet and affectionate and prompted addressed me as “Auntie Yvonne,” giving me a hug, and making sure I knew how old each of them were. The youngest one was 15 months, and he was like a quiet little koala. This is my “go big or go home” friend when it comes to kids: she always said she either wanted zero kids or a LOT of kids. And so now she’s got three. And just before I was going to ask if they were considering a fourth (because this time last year, she told me she and her husband seriously were talking about trying for a fourth!), she told me that they are officially stopping at three because their number 3 child had a very tumultuous first 15 months on earth, with getting RSV at two months and rhino virus at four months; both required multiple night-long hospitalizations. And then just before Thanksgiving (and his first birthday), he started vomiting, and his stool was coming out with blood. They found out that he had intussusception, which is a medical condition where one of his intestines slid into another part of his intestine; they said the most common way to understand what’s happening is to think about how a telescope slides its way in and out. It was a result of having multiple back to back viral infections — poor little guy. And the only way to resolve this was to have him do surgery where the surgeons would cut him open and manually pull the intestine out of each other. Luckily, no parts of the intestine had died (this is a real fear if it’s caught too late), and he made a quick recovery. This little one-year-old was out of the hospital, post-operation, after just a one night stay! In retrospect, they said they really had it good: their first child never got sick and was super easy as a baby and toddler; their second child got sick occasionally but was also pretty chill. This third child, as is evident, keeps giving them one scare after the next!

I think about these crazy situations that can come up that are completely out of our control, and I’m just so thankful that Kaia has, to date, been pretty healthy (and fingers crossed, this continues). I don’t know how I could stomach a situation like my friend’s third child had — to think of a tiny little baby needing to be cut open for surgery just makes me want to cry my eyes out. My friend and her husband are definitely troopers in their own right — and the most fertile couple I am friends with, by far!