A Pennsylvania couple who struggled with infertility for eight years got an unexpected surprise when they found themselves the parents of four newborns, all within the span of three months.
Zac and Brittney Wolfe of St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, told Good Morning America that they tried for years to have a baby before deciding to explore adoption. They learned of embryo adoption, which is a process that allows parents to adopt embryos that have been frozen and “leftover” from a previous couple’s IVF experience.
The Wolfes got in touch with the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) to adopt their embryos, but unfortunately, the first transfer resulted in a miscarriage.
“We met with her and she asked us if we would adopt her baby,” Brittney said. “So, we were there from about the middle of her pregnancy. I was with her at her 20-week ultrasound when we found out it was a girl. I was there through all of her appointments.”
Still involved with the NEDC, they decided to try embryo adoption one more time in the hopes that one of their options would work out.
“We’d had the failed embryo transfer and we also had so many [adoption] scams,” Zac said.
“We knew both of them may not work. It’s a 50-50 chance,” added Brittney. “So we went for it.”
Despite the disappointment of their past experience, the couple was thrilled to learn that Brittney was soon expecting. Though they had transferred three embryos, they were told that there was a less than one percent chance that all the embryos would make it.
“We got the [first] ultrasound and I said to the tech, ‘Can you tell me there’s one? Please, please tell me there’s one because we really want this,'” Brittney recalled. “And she smiled, and she said, ‘Oh, there’s two,’ and I looked at Zac and we’re both smiling, like, ‘Holy cow, we’re going to have three kids. This is so crazy.’ And then [the tech] said, ‘Oh my gosh, wait … there’s three.'”
Amazingly, despite past miscarriages, Brittney’s pregnancy with the triplets was uncomplicated. And while she was experiencing her pregnancy, the adoption process continued to move forward. On July 27, baby Charlie was born. Less than three months later, on October 19, triplets Knox, Noa, and Navie arrived.
“We always talked about a big family,” Zac said. “That’s something we dreamed of.”
Though the triplets are all still in the NICU, they are “thriving.” Though life will be a bit busier once all the babies are home, the couple say they are looking forward to it.
“We’re going to blink and we’re going to look back and say, ‘How the heck did we do that?'” Brittney said. “But we did it. We’re all thriving. It’s going to be good.”
