A few weeks passed, and Sam grew bigger and bigger until she was having to order plus sized clothes online because usually maternity clothes, even for full term mothers, did not fit her anymore. At 18 weeks pregnant, Sam looked a little bit bigger than a full term singleton mother and she was extremely exhausted, not that she would admit it to anyone, except her husband so she had been putting on a front at work. She had two weeks before she would go on maternity leave, and just six weeks before she was put on bed rest for the benefit of her children.

They had a busy three days ahead of them. Firstly, Sam had her anomaly scan where they would find out the genders along with another MDT meeting with her medical team. The next day, they were going to be shopping for their new home. And the day after that was the day that Sam and Tom would give an interview and have a photo shoot for goodbye magazine.

"Make sure you have a full bladder for the scan." Tom remarked as they walked along the maternity corridors after being called by the receptionist
"When do I not have a full bladder?" Sam said sarcastically was they entered Mr T's room.
"Ah, Sam, Tom. Good to see you." He smiled as the couple sat down in front of his desk.
"Just to let you know, she's in a sarcastic, odd mood." Tom stated bluntly and Sam rolled her eyes.
"Right." Mr T replied awkwardly. "Well for the scan, I'm going to take approximately 15 to 20 minutes per baby to check that everything is in order. Now I understand that sitting for so long might be uncomfortable so I'll check four of your babies, then you can have a ten minute break and then I'll check the others okay?"
"Yep." Sam nodded.
"Okay, let's get started then. If you just want to jump on the bed."

"Not literally of course." Tom added sternly as Sam got up from her chair. He helped her onto the bed before he sat besides her as she rolled her shirt up. Mr T carried over eight thin A4 folders and placed them besides the machine with his one.
"Each of your babies has already got it's own file." Mr T smiled as he opened the first one labelled 'Baby A Kent.' "Would you like to know the genders if it's possible?" He asked.
"Definitely." Sam and Tom both replied at the same time.
"Okay then, let's have a look at baby A." Mr T announced as he pressed the lubricated probe onto Sam's bump. He held the probe around the very bottom of Sam's bump and twisted the screen slightly so that he, as well as the parents, could see the screen. Because there was 8 babies in the womb, not all could be seen at once so there was just a baby in the middle, along with two feet belonging to another baby. "Right, so you know that there's triplets in one amniotic sac another lot of triplets in a second sac and a set of twins in another sac." Mr T explained. "Baby A, is one of the triplets in the first sac, and I can tell you that it's almost certainly a boy." He smiled and Tom had a smug look on his face.

"What would you say if it was all eight boys?" Tom asked curiously.
"They're not all boys." Sam huffed, but she wasn't fully sure yet. They'd just have to wait and see.


40 minutes later, Mr T had thoroughly checked Baby A and B and both were healthy boys.
"Now then, let's have a look at Baby C who -because it's in the same sac- is probably a boy as well." Mr T said as he moved the probe around with one hand, and got the third patient file with his other hand so that he could fill out the details about that baby. "Yep, it's a boy and- oh..." Mr T peered at the screen to get a closer view.
"What is it?" Sam queried worriedly.
"Just gimme a minute." Mr T said as he turned the screen to face him rather than the parents. Tom squeezed Sam's hand a little harder as they both anxiously waited a few minutes before he reluctantly turned the screen back to them. "This little boy, has what's called Spina Bifida. Have you heard of it before?" He asked curiously.
"No." Sam mumbled.
"I've heard of it, but I don't know a lot about it." Tom stated.

"Well, the white dotted line is his spine, and see this bulge along the spine, that's a fluid filled sac where the vertebrae isn't fully fused. But by the looks of things, the spinal chord isn't affected." He explained.
"Is there a treatment for it?" Tom asked.
"Yes, it would most likely require a small operation to remove the sac, however even with the sac removed, there could still be symptoms of the problem such as paralysis, bladder or bowel incontinence and problems with learning." He explained and Sam tensed up.
"So what? He might not walk?" Sam asked worriedly.
"It is a possibility, but it is more likely that he will walk than not." Mr T stated. "I'll just continue with the scan." Mr T said quietly as he looked back at the screen and began writing notes in Baby C's folder.


It had seemed like forever when Mr T finally took the probe off of Sam's stomach after checking all eight babies - three of which were boys, and five were girls. Aside from the third boy having spina bifida, there were no other problems, except one little worry.
"I am a little bit concerned about Baby H because she is clearly the smallest by far. Now, she is fully developed, but she isn't quite growing at the pace of her brothers and sisters because she is at the very top of your uterus, and she appears to have the least space out of all of them." Mr T explained. "However, in general, they are doing pretty well." He stated as Tom helped Sam off of the bed to cheer them up because he knew that the couple weren't too thrilled with the diagnosis of spina bifida. "Here you go." He said as he handed Tom a small pile of scan pictures - there was one for each baby. "Right, do you want to take a breather before we go to the MDT meetings?" He suggested.

"No, let's just get this other with." Sam sighed.
"You sure?" Tom asked and Sam nodded. "Come on then." He said as he turned Sam around and they followed the consultant out of the room and towards a meeting room.


It was evening by the time Sam and Tom left the hospital after discussing the bed rest, the birth and the babies care after the birth and Sam had barely said a word since the scan. Tom came in to the living room, at next to Sam on the sofa as he handed her a cup of creamy hot chocolate that had become part of her bedtime regime just weeks into her pregnancy.
"Right, I know it's not something that we can ignore, but this spina bifida... We can't do anything and we can't change anything until he's born. And it isn't necessarily life threatening at all, so we've just got to be optimistic, like we are for all of them." Tom explained softly as he wrapped his arm around her back. "C'mon, where's that smile I saw earlier when you found out five of them were girls?" Tom asked and Sam couldn't help it as a smile tugged at her lips. "There it is." Tom smiled as he squeezed her hips. He smoothed his hand over her large bump and rested it there.

"I knew there'd be more girls." Sam smiled as she linked her fingers with Tom's on too of her bump.
"Yeah right." Tom muttered.
"I did!" Sam protested.
"Mm." Tom nodded just to shut her up as she took a sip of her hot chocolate. "So... Shopping tomorrow." He stated.
"Mm, and I'm going to spend as much of goodbye magazine's money as possible." Sam stated proudly.
"For a variety of reasons, do you think it's best that we just get everything that's unisex rather than for a specific baby?" Tom suggested. "Because otherwise washing and dressing will be a nightmare." He stated.
"And then if some of them don't make it-"
"Don't even go there." Tom interrupted. "Whatever happens, happens. We'll just have to wait and see." He stated.

"Tom... When I'm on bed rest, will you stay with me some nights?" Sam asked quietly.
"Some nights? Sam I'm staying with you every night." Tom stated and Sam let out a small sigh of relief. "You soppy cow! You thought I was going to stay at home while you spent however long in hospital?" Tom laughed.
"Kinda I... I just didn't think that you'd want to sleep in a hospital when you didn't have to." Sam admitted and Tom shook his head in disbelief before he kissed Sam on her forehead.
"I'm with you every step of the way." Tom stated.
"Sorry to ruin the moment but I need a wee." Sam smiled sweetly.
"Go on." Tom smirked as he gave her a little push to get up off of the sofa before she waddled to the bathroom.


Tom and Sam laid under the duvet in their double bed both on their side and he had his hands, gently smoothing over her stretched, taunted skin of her abdomen.
"You mean the world to me, y'know that?" Tom whispered. "And you are gonna be the perfect mother to all of our children."
"Mm, and you're gonna be the fun parent, and I'm gonna be the serious boring one." Sam stated sleepily.
"No, we'll be equally as fun and as boring as each other." Tom smirked. "Oh and, just to keep you going all day tomorrow, I've got you a little present that you can cuddle up to in the evening." Tom stated.
"I swear if you've got a pet I'm gonna-"
"No no no no no it's not a pet." Tom said quickly.
"Well what is it then?" Sam asked curiously.
"But that'll ruin the surprise." Tom pouted.
"But I don't like surprises." Sam stated and Tom rolled his eyes.

"Fine." He huffed. "It's a U shaped body pillow." Tom stated. "I thought it'd help with your back and you might get a better sleep with it." He explained and Sam sank into his embrace even further.
"Thank you." She said sleepily as she closed her eyes.
"You're welcome. Night night." Tom whispered as he reached behind him and turned the bedside lamp off.

Thanks for reading, please review :)