There's nothing more exciting than a pregnancy. For a first-time parent, the anticipation of preparing for the arrival of your newborn is unlike any other feeling in the world. For parents who have done this before, they tend to worry less about the steps along the way until the baby is born. For the Whiteley family, they thought they were in the clear until their doctor revealed some very shocking news about their third pregnancy...
Everything Seemed Normal
Lauren and Michael Whiteley lived in Detroit, Michigan, and had two young children together. Their third pregnancy was unexpected, but they took it in stride and prepared their house to make room for another baby. Lauren's first two pregnancies had been so easy, so she expected the same for this one...
A Natural At Parenting
Because they both loved children, Lauren and MIchael both went into teaching. Lauren worked at a private school in Macomb County and Michael worked at a public school as a science teacher. After they met, it was only a matter of time before they had kids of their own...
Two Sweet Boys
Before their surprise pregnancy, Lauren gave birth to Lucas, three, and Nolan, two. Despite already having demanding fulltime jobs, they easily balanced raising two young boys with their busy schedule. Since the boys were only a year apart - something they'd planned - they got along easily.
Surprise Expectancy
Despite knowing that they wanted a big family fast, Lauren and Michael had no idea that they'd get pregnant again so soon after their youngest son was born. They wondered if they'd have another boy and keep up the pattern, or maybe they'd have a girl this time. However, the pregnancy wasn't exactly progressing as expected...
An Anxious Ultrasound Appointment
There's nothing more exciting than the first ultrasound of a pregnancy. Whether or not you've done it before, there's nothing like that first photo of your baby. Lauren and Michael anxiously waited for the image to load on the screen, and when it finally did, the ultrasound tech paused...
Some Unusual Results
When the tech left the room with a scan of the ultrasound, Lauren and Michael got nervous. The tech said she needed to show the scan to the doctor, something Lauren had never been told with her previous pregnancies. Lauren waited in fear and wondered if something was wrong with their baby...
They Waited For Answers
When the tech came back in the room, Lauren's heart was pounding. Parents tend to have intuition about their kids, but right now Lauren had no idea what to think. She quickly asked if something was wrong, and the answer was the complete opposite of what she'd expected...
Shockingly Good News
The tech explained that, though they'd found a heartbeat on the monitor, it wasn't the only one. Lauren asked if they were having twins, which would have been shocking but exciting nonetheless. The tech said that wasn't quite the answer, and that her pregnancy was incredibly rare...
They Were Having Triplets
The tech stopped her before she could get carried away. "You're not having twins, you're having triplets," she said. Lauren couldn't believe it. She was overwhelmed with joy at their luck. Three babies! The tech even confirmed that all the results looked healthy. This was a one-in-a-million pregnancy...
Party of Five
Lauren and Michael couldn't believe their luck. Twins nor triplets didn't run in either of their families, so they had no idea where this came from. According to the CDC, only 0.1% of pregnancies carry triplets...
The Placenta Factor
Lauren and Michael's other two boys were born under completely normal circumstances and looked mostly alike. However, a revealing factor about Lauren's current pregnancy was whether or not the babies would share one placenta or each have their own. The doctor told Lauren at another appointment that the babies all shared one placenta, which meant they were going to be completely identical...
Michael's Reaction
Michael was completely shocked through it all. Lauren took it all in stride and was overwhelmingly happy, but Michael took longer to fully accept the fact that they would be parents of five in just a matter of months. Eventually as the pregnancy progressed he of course grew to be just as excited as Lauren...
Welcome Nick, Tim, and Alex
In January 2015, Lauren gave birth to three healthy boys at 34 weeks via C-section. The Whiteley's had the best start to a brand new year with three new members of their family. The babies were named Nicholas, Timothy, and Alexander, and looked exactly alike...
Head Count
When the babies came home, the older boys quickly adjusted to their roles as older brothers. "We were trying for a girl, but we aren't trying anymore. We have our offensive and defensive lives, everything but a goalie," Michael said. While they didn't get the girl they'd anticipated, they did live through a miracle pregnancy...
Postnatal Stress
Being pregnant with triplets is far from easy. How they'd all managed to squeeze inside of Lauren for nine months was unbelievable in itself, and the first few weeks after they were born proved to be difficult. The babies only weighed five pounds and had very vulnerable immune systems...
A Trip To The ICU
Doctors told Lauren and Michael that the babies should spend some time in the ICU until they gained some weight. The triplets ended up staying there for an entire month. The Whiteley's understood the importance of keeping them in the hospital but were upset they couldn't go home to be with the other boys right away...
Homecoming
When the babies finally came home, they fit right in with the other boys. All seven Whiteleys were under one roof for the first time. The feeling of having three new babies was overwhelming, but they had always said they'd wanted a big family...
Everyone Was Thrilled
Lauren and Michael were both very close to their own families. To make it even better: they all lived in the same neighborhood. The couple's five young children now had all the help they needed. The grandparents were more than happy to babysit anytime they were needed...
Helping Hands
Everyone could breathe easier knowing the three babies were home, healthy, and had gained the weight they'd needed to leave the ICU. Every day, Lauren's parents came over to watch the boys from 9 p.m. to midnight so the couple could get some rest. They both said all the help had been lifesaving in the beginning...
A United Front
Along with Lauren and Michael's families, their friends and coworkers also came together to pitch in whenever they were needed. Their friends actually organized a fundraiser to help the new parents afford gifts for the babies. There was a website where people could sign up to make meals, babysit, or donate...
A Big Happy Family
According to the CDC, there are only around 4,300 triplet pregnancies every year in the US. Lauren and Michael aren't the only ones who have lived through miracle multiple-baby pregnancies...
The Dionne Quintuplets
In 1934, five identical baby girls were born in a farmhouse in Ontario. At two months premature, they were the first known quintuplets to have survived their infancy. At four months old they were made wards of the state and lived at an orphanage until they were nine years old...
Completely Identical
In 1943, the Dionnes won back the custody of the girls, though it wasn't a happy story. The parents weren't exactly thrilled to have five more children. They moved into their parents' home with five of their other siblings, but they were often lectured about all the trouble they'd caused the family simply by being born...
The Gosselin Sextuplets
More famously known for their roles on Jon & Kate Plus 8, a reality TV show that documented the lives of the Gosselins and their sextuplets and a pair of twins. Kate underwent fertility treatment that happened to conceive six viable eggs in one go: Aeden, Colin, Joel, Alexis, Hannah, and Leah. They were born at 30 weeks in 2004...
A Messy Divorce
In 2009, Jon and Kate announced their split, and the show went under a name change: Kate Plus 8. Kate won full custody of all kids, and Jon won visitation rights. Since the show has gone off the air, the family has become much more private about the whereabouts of their eight kids...
"Octomom" Nadya Suleman
Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets in 2009. Hers was the second full set of octuplets born alive in the U.S. The media coined the nickname "Octomom" even though she also already had six other kids at home...
A Successful IVF Pregnancy
Like Kate Gosselin, Nadya concieved via IVF, but the reason she earned so much public scrutiny was that she implaned twelve embryos rather than the recommended two. Following several media and legal stints, she now raises her fourteen children fully on her own with a vegan lifestyle...
The Harris Sextuplets
Chris and Diamond Harris delivered sextuplets via artifical insemination in 2002 at 26.5 weeks. Kiera, Kaylynne, Kaled, Kobe, Kieran, and Kyle are Alabama's first set of sextuplets, and a record-breaking surviving African-American set of sextuplets. Two of the children, Kiera and Kyle, are autistic...
A Second Chance
The Harris family's home was severely damaged in Hurrican Ivan, and the family was featured on a 2005 episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition. To make things even better, Miles College, near their home in Alabama, provided scholarships to the siblings...
Dilley Sextuplets
Born in 1993, the Dilley sextuplets are the U.S.'s first set of surviving sextuplets. After five unsuccessful years of trying to concieve, Keith and Becki Dilley underwent IVF and eventually became pregnant with six babies. The whole pregnancy, ultrasounds only showed five babies, but during the delivery, it was revealled that a sixth baby had been hiding behind Becki's spleen the whole time.