Today, Wednesday’s Wild Chronicles takes us to a week of wild emotions. In a matter of 72 hours our life would drastically change! Two years later I still reflect on this week in my life with awe.

The lunch at my parent’s house post church that day started out like every Sunday does. We all gathered around the bar in my parent’s kitchen, getting ourselves settled before lunch was ready. My sister-in-law pulls out an ultrasound picture and lays it so we all can see. They already had two children so I was slightly confused by the way she was informing us they were pregnant again. With the other two, they simply just told us. No drama involved. And, my sister-in-law is quite a drama free person.

“Take a look,” she says. Immediately, it is obvious that it is an ultrasound confirming pregnancy. “Congrats!” we say. “Look again,” she replies. So, I study the picture closer and realize there is more than one. “Twins?” “Look again,” she says for the third time. That was when I saw what she was saying. They were pregnant with triplets.

To say I had mixed emotions might be the understatement of this entire blog site. Scared, happy, sad, excited, envious, angry… pretty much any imaginable emotion wrapped up into one moment in time.

I was happy that they were going to get to be parents again, but I knew the risks that lay ahead. As a former NICU nurse, I knew the chance of prematurity was high.

In the undercurrent of the situation, I was struggling to resolve my emotions about my infertility. Our last round of treatment resulted in so many mature follicles that the doctor would not go forward with the IUI before discussing selective reduction. It was supposed to have been me that was pregnant with multiples.

At the time of the announcement, I had been longing for another child of our own and experiencing a strong intuition that God was going to fulfill that dream. Pregnancies have never been easy for me to be around as they are such a stark reminder of my body’s failure. I was bewildered why God would have me sit by and watch another sibling pregnancy when I was yearning for another child.

I had no idea what to do with all of the emotions balled up inside of me. I knew the road my brother and his wife had ahead of them was not an enviable one. They were going to need support to get through it, but I was going to have to resolve my conflicting feelings before I could do that.

Space to process all that I was feeling was something I would not get. God had a different plan.

Three days after the announcement, hubby came home from work and said, “We have to have a talk.” What came next is still sometimes hard for me to believe.

The minister that had visited our week of camp and inquired whether we were interested in adopting again had called. A family from his church had come to him looking for advice on making an adoption plan. He needed to know if we would be interested in working with them.

On the heels of the triplet’s announcement, I almost could not process what was laid before us. So many emotions came.

I was scared to go forward with the match. If it failed, I was going to need to be able to help with the triplets. Could I handle three newborns, while grieving a failed adoption? If something happened with the triplets and our adoption was a success, would I feel a sense of survivor’s guilt?

But, what if they both were a success? How awesome and amazing would that be?!

We agreed to go forward with the adoption plan. Anxious, we called the expectant mother and discussed the plan. She was not in a place to care for the baby as she saw fit so she wanted to make an adoption plan instead. However, she wanted to remain a part of the child’s life. Bingo! It was exactly what we were looking for in adopting a second child!

The first of many catches? Thirty-six weeks is considered full-term for a pregnancy with triplets. The triplets and this baby were due on the exact same day! How would we handle if either the triplets or this adoption did not happen?

It was completely surreal and utterly confusing to have my emotions driven in such diverse directions. Even today knowing the outcome, wrapping my mind around this seventy-two hour timeframe is still difficult! It was a lot to handle all at once!