One Hundred High Fives

“In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me.”

— Psalm 120:1(CSB)

The Brotherhood These Three Share

To watch three boys grow up together is to witness something sacred. Our oldest stepped into the big brother role like he was born for it — steady, protective, the kind of presence that anchors a room. The twins developed that wordless twin fluency, that ability to communicate whole conversations through a single glance.

They are different, these three — different in temperament, in interests, in the ways they move through the world. One of them found wrestling. The others found other arenas entirely. But they are unmistakably a brotherhood. Shaped by the same story. Carried by the same prayers. Bound by the knowledge that their very existence was fought for and prayed into being.

These twins share something even deeper than most brothers will ever know: they spent four months together in utero in an antepartum ward, Baby A’s fragile, ruptured sac the only thing standing between both of them and a world not yet ready for them. Baby A held on — and in holding on, he held his brother too.

Forged in a hospital room most people have never seen — and proved on a wrestling mat that some bonds don’t just endure. They show up, poster in hand, and run.

One Hundred Wins

Baby B took to wrestling like it was written into him. And maybe it was. A sport built entirely on the refusal to quit. A sport where the only question that matters, in the end, is: how badly do you want it?

Baby B — who spent his earliest weeks in a NICU, carried to viability by a twin brother who held on for four months in utero with a ruptured sac — was built for this.

I watched him lose matches in his younger years and choose to return anyway. I watched him become, slowly and then all at once, a competitor. A wrestler. Someone whose opponent had better be ready.

And then came the day his brothers and I had been quietly counting toward: his 100th win.

I sat in those bleachers and the math settled into my chest like something physical.

One hundred injections. Viability day and a ruptured sac. Four months in an antepartum ward, two boys still in utero, my stillness their only shelter. A NICU vigil that stretched every last prayer I had. One hundred wins.

The symmetry felt like God leaning close and whispering, “I was counting too. I saw every needle. And I want you to see — right now, in this gymnasium — what I was building through all of it.”

The match ended. The referee reached for Baby B’s wrist.

And that is when I saw him.

Baby A — the twin who had spent four months in utero keeping his brother alive with a ruptured sac and sheer, God-given tenacity — came bursting through the edge of the mat. In his hands was a poster he had made himself: one hundred hand-drawn high fives covering every inch of it, and across the top in bold letters that could be read from the bleachers:

100 WINS

He didn’t walk out there. He ran. The way only a twin runs toward his other half. The way only someone runs when the joy is too large to stay in the stands a single second longer, when the love has been building since before either of you took your first breath and this is finally the moment it gets to pour out in front of everyone.

One hundred hand-drawn high fives. One for every win. Made by the boy who, without knowing it, was the reason there were any wins to count at all.

The referee raised Baby B’s hand.

Baby A raised that poster.

And the gymnasium — the mat, the lights, the noise, all of it — blurred completely as I came apart in those bleachers. Because what I was watching was not just a wrestling milestone. It was the entire story, right there in front of me, in living color. The boy who had held on through four months in utero with a ruptured sac, who had carried his twin brother to delivery, who had been Baby B’s first and fiercest protector before either of them ever opened their eyes — was now sprinting across a wrestling mat with one hundred high fives to celebrate him.

He had been cheering for his brother since before either of them took a breath.

He was still cheering now.

Baby A carried Baby B into the world the first time. And on that mat, he carried him into this moment too.

I have never in my life felt the faithfulness of God so physically, so completely, so undeniably.

He answered me.

What I Want You to Know

If you are in your own season of waiting — mid-injection, lying in a hospital bed you didn’t plan to be in, or sitting in a waiting room for news you’re not sure you’re ready to receive — I want you to hear this from someone who has been in every one of those places:

He hears you. Every prayer. Every needle. Every morning you woke up in an antepartum bed that wasn’t yours and chose to trust Him anyway. Every desperate whispered plea in a waiting room or a NICU chair. Not one moment has been lost, wasted, or ignored.

I won’t pretend I know how your story ends. I cannot promise your answer will look like mine. But I can testify — with my whole being, as a mother of three miracle sons, including one who is alive today because his twin held on for four months in utero with a ruptured sac. And whose twin then ran onto a wrestling mat with one hundred hand-drawn high fives to prove it. That Psalm 120:1 is not merely poetry.

It is a promise. And He keeps it.

Sometimes the answer comes in the form of three noisy, muddy-cleated boys who fill your home with the beautiful chaos of a brotherhood that was prayed into existence one desperate, faithful needle at a time.

Sometimes it comes in the form of watching the smallest one — the one who almost wasn’t, the one who came home from the NICU because his twin never let go — stand on a wrestling mat with his hand raised high while that same twin sprints toward him, poster overhead, one hundred high fives for one hundred wins, the most joyful human being in the building.

One hundred injections. Four months in an antepartum ward, two boys in utero, one ruptured sac, and a mother who chose hope every single morning. One hundred wins. One boy who almost wasn’t — and a twin brother who has been fighting for him, and cheering for him, since before either of them drew their first breath.

He answered me. And I will spend the rest of my life saying so.