Overwhelmed by Triplets, We Considered a Difficult Choice

No one truly prepares you for what it means to have triplets. You see the sweet, filtered photos online—three identical outfits, perfectly posed smiles, happy parents beaming like everything is effortless. But behind every snapshot is a reality most people don’t talk about. The nights when all three babies are crying. The endless feedings. The exhaustion so deep it starts to blur who you are.

I love my children with every piece of my soul. But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t moments—especially in the middle of the night, holding one baby while the other two wailed—when I wondered how we could possibly keep going.

We weren’t ready. Not financially. Not emotionally. Not practically. We were still adjusting to life with our first child when the ultrasound technician looked at us and said, “There are three.” It was a miracle—but one that came like a tidal wave. My husband and I, once so close, became passing shadows—trading shifts, taking turns surviving. The love never disappeared, but it often got buried under diapers, laundry, and sleepless nights.

No one warned us about this kind of exhaustion. The kind that changes how you see yourself. The kind that tests your marriage. The kind that isolates you, even when you’re never alone.

Each day became a checklist of survival. Did they eat? Sleep? Breathe? Did I? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d finished a meal without interruption or taken a shower that didn’t feel like a race against a ticking meltdown. Well-meaning friends told us to “take it easy.” But there’s no easy when three small humans depend on you every minute of the day, and you’re the only one who knows where the clean pacifiers are.

My husband was trying—God, he was trying. But I saw it: how the light in his eyes had dimmed, how his laughter became rare. We were still together, but the weight of everything was pushing us to our edge.

And then, during one long, quiet night, the question came—unspoken, but heavy in the room: Were we enough for them? Were we really giving them the life they deserved, or just scraping by, hoping love would make up the difference?

We weren’t thinking of giving up. We were thinking of giving them more—whatever that looked like.

Then came a conversation that changed everything. My sister-in-law Marie, who had always wanted children, called. Not with advice. Not with judgment. Just with compassion. She listened. Then, gently, she mentioned something we hadn’t considered. Through her family’s lawyer, she’d found programs and resources specifically for parents of multiples—support we didn’t even know existed. Financial aid. Childcare services. Family therapy. Relief.

For the first time in months, we felt something unexpected: hope.

We made a new choice. Not to break our family apart, but to save it—by reaching out. We accepted help. We leaned into our family, our community, the systems that were quietly waiting for us to stop trying to do it all alone.

Things are still busy. We’re still tired. But we’re not drowning anymore. We’re finding our rhythm. We’re recovering—slowly, lovingly, together.

If you’re in that place—where you’re holding everything together with frayed hands and an aching heart—please hear this: you are not alone. Asking for help doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you care enough to keep going.

Reaching out saved us. It can save you, too.