There are moments in life when you stare back at God’s answer to your prayer and realize you’re standing in the very thing you never imagined—and once said you’d never do. This is one of those stories.
My husband and I got married in 2001, and by the time 2002 rolled around, I was ready to start building our family. We talked about having five children, and I was in my mid-twenties—surely this would be easy and fun.
I had no idea we were about to step into the long, painful nightmare of infertility.
After years of disappointment, missed hopes, and unanswered prayers, we finally sat across from an infertility specialist. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed. The cost. The medications. The needles. All of it—for a chance at pregnancy. And not even a guaranteed one. We were told we had a 40–50% chance of success.
The doctors called that “high.”
To me, it felt painfully low considering the physical, emotional, and mental toll it required.
I took another year or two before finally breaking down and agreeing to try IVF. At that point, our original dream of five children had quietly shrunk to three. IVF was so expensive that we had to take out a loan, and we were desperately hoping one round would be enough.
Most of our siblings had three children, so we prayed boldly—and maybe a little desperately—for triplets. One pregnancy. Three babies. Done.
But round after round failed.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to stop chasing science and put my full faith back in God, believing Him for a miracle. Along the way, well-meaning family and friends kept offering the same suggestion:
“Why don’t you just adopt?”
They had no idea how deeply that suggestion hurt.
Adoption felt like giving up on my faith and on the belief that I could have children of my own. On top of that, I remembered a talk given by an adoptive mother when I was in college. I don’t remember the details—but I do remember thinking, I’ll never do that.
So I found a polite escape phrase:
“I’ll pray about it.”
Once people stopped bringing it up, I realized I probably should pray about it—if only to keep my words from being a lie. But I also added a layer of insurance. I told God that if He truly wanted me to adopt, He would have to place the child directly at my doorstep… because I would never go looking.
A few years later, I overheard my husband talking to his mother about three young relatives who were placed in foster care. She was trying to get custody, but the system was making things incredibly difficult. Because I had a friend in social work, I started helping the family navigate the process—on the outside, emotionally detached, or so I told myself.
Somehow, I became the spokesperson for the family, pushing the system, demanding protocol be followed, and fighting to get the girls placed with their great-grandparents.
In August 2012, my husband and I went to court to support his parents. That’s when everything changed.
The judge ruled that because of their age—and the young ages of the children—it would be best if the girls were only moved once. There were three rows of family members that had come to court, but none of my in-laws volunteered to take them. I was completely shocked.
Then my husband turned around and looked at me.
That look.
Without fully processing what was happening, I raised my hand and said we would take the girls.
Later on that evening, I asked him, “What made you want to get the girls?”
He looked confused and said, “I thought you wanted them.”
I stared at him and replied, “You gave me a look.”
He smiled and said, “Baby, I was just looking at you.”
A few months later, the girls moved into our home—and my world was completely turned upside down.
Overwhelmed, exhausted, and emotionally wrecked, I drove to my aunt’s house to vent. I told her everything—the chaos, the frustration, the immense stress.
When I finally finished, she simply said,
“Yeah, Tonya, it’s hard having triplets.”
I corrected her quickly. “Auntie, their ages are five, seven, and ten.”
She smiled and said, “I know. But you got three kids all at once. That’s triplets.”
On the drive home, it hit me.
I prayed for triplets for years—believing with all my heart that God would answer in the way I imagined. What I didn’t understand back then is that answered prayers don’t always arrive wrapped the way we expect. Sometimes they come disguised as disruption, discomfort, and detours we thought we’d never take. But standing in this life now, I can see it clearly. Like the children of Israel who asked God for food, and when God sent it, they called the food manna, which means what is it in Hebrew. God didn’t ignore my prayer. I believe He gave me a foreshadow. Not through pregnancy tests or ultrasounds—but through three children who walked into our lives all at once and changed us forever.
