Sometimes you just know when you have found your family. It doesn’t have to be the one you’re born with.

Families have so many ways of finding each other. For one nurse, one teenage mother and three extremely tiny babies – their path to one another began where for many life starts – the hospital.

Fourteen-year-old Shariya Small had been struggling to handle the enormous task of being pregnant with triplets. And even harder, when they were born 14 weeks early, the babies, considered micro-preemies by doctors, were immediately admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

For Shariya, her life had taken a sudden and scary turn. While in the NICU, the babies were in incubators, where they would learn to breathe on their own, giving their lungs time to get stronger, all the while teaching them the basics of how to learn to feed, and giving them the best chance at healing from the trauma of their early birth. After four months, the babies were well enough to go home.

Just a teenager, Shariya now had to take care of three babies: feed them, change their diapers, while most kids would be studying for school and hanging out with their friends. The responsibility she faced was overwhelming to the young teen.

But throughout her stay with her children in the NICU, one nurse had followed her on this journey since Day 1.

Not only did the veteran NICU nurse take care of Shariya’s babies from the moment they were born, but Katrina Mullen found herself wanting to help the young mother find her footing. 

“I would go sit in the office with her and talk about basically anything,” Shariya said.

For Katrina, it was a time to get to know the young woman, and share her own experiences with parenting.

“I would tell her some of my secrets and she talked to me about her experiences with being a teen mom. That’s one of the things we clicked on while I was in the hospital.”

When Shariya and her three babies were discharged from the hospital, the pair exchanged phone numbers, promising to keep in touch.

And Katrina kept her promise: from phone calls to texts to video phone chats, she was there whenever Shariya needed help, including handing one of her son’s feeding tube.

Katrina sent the new family gifts and care packages, and began visiting Shariya and her babies, despite the two-hour round trip drive.

Shariya Small, center, poses with her children, new siblings and new mother after being adopted by the NICU nurse who took care of her children.

“She would drive from Brownsburg (Indiana) to Kokomo (Indiana) just to see me and the babies for like an hour,” Shariya said.

One day, though, she had to bring her young son back to the hospital. This, unfortunately, made the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) look into the living situation for the teeanger and the three babies. DCS decided the children should be put in foster care.

“Just from being a nurse, I knew there would not be many foster homes that would take a teen mother with three kids,” Katrina said. 

So despite being a single mom with five kids, she decided to adopt not only Shariya, but her three babies, as well.

While it took some adjustment, Katrina and Shariya have made this new life work. 

Mullen is thrilled with their new family.

“It’s been great,” she said. “Stressful? Yes. Sleepless nights? Yes. But worth it? Absolutely.”

Shariya is now back in school, with hopes to get her degree to graduate. “Everybody told me that I wouldn’t finish school, that I wouldn’t achieve my goals, but now I’m graduating as a junior and was accepted into two colleges with academic scholarships,” she said. 

Her goal? To be a nurse, just like her mother.

Source: My Positive Outlooks