The One With the Quadruplet Scare

Date: 5/1/2024

I’m in high school. I’m in an auditorium with a bunch of girls I apparently know doing some sort of assignment where we’re supposed to listen to the Christmas music that’s playing and write something about how it makes us feel “more like ourselves.” I’m confused by this, but assume that I should write it about feeling like a child when I hear it. I end up walking into some sort of spacious lobby area — it almost looks like Grand Central Station — crowded with people. I see Peyton with an older man who’s supposed to be her dad (in real life, he passed away years ago). She sees my dad — who’s walking by — and points at him excitedly. No one seems to notice me as I approach, and it takes me several tries to get my dad’s attention in the crowd. I end up walking with him when I see a few kids that are supposed to be Renee’s ex-students. I smile and laugh as one of the boys hugs me around the waist and keeps walking. At some point, I end up in a large room with about a hundred women. We’re apparently performing ultrasounds on ourselves, and I scan myself (somehow, my stomach is not attached to my body) and see two sacs. I press my fingers into the disembodied stomach and feel at least two babies moving around inside. I’m immediately anxious but excited and ask the doctor — a woman (possibly Dr. Deutsch) who’s standing in the middle of the room with a sonography machine — if she can check me next as she looks at another woman. She tells me she will, and I turn to a woman in military uniform and say, “I think I’m pregnant… but I don’t know how! We’ve been using condoms!” When the doctor starts scanning me, we all collectively see four sacs appear on the screen. I forcefully press my hand over my mouth as I shout, “No! No!” Everyone else gasps and I remember that they somehow know I already have infant twins. My mind starts racing and I quickly wonder what this will do to my already-struggling body, how Elliott and Audrey will have so little time with us to themselves, and how their birthdays will be super close. I can feel myself going into a panic and take solace in the fact that I don’t have to concern myself with my weight right now. At some point, the doctor looks at the sonogram again and says, “Okay, there are only three!” I’m slightly relieved but then remember that having triplets would still be insane.