Brittney had tried everything to have a baby, then something extraordinary happened…
Glancing down at my phone, I saw it was my friend Mark calling.
‘I’m sorry, Brittney,’ he said. ‘I have some bad news. Zac’s been in a car accident.’
I felt numb with shock.
I’d known Zac for years, as we hung out with the same close-knit group of friends.
Mark told me Zac and some mates had been travelling in a car, which had lost control and flipped over.
Paramedics had rushed him to hospital, where he’d been diagnosed with a C4/C5 spinal cord injury.
My heart sank.
I was studying nursing at university, and knew it often led to lifelong paralysis.
The following week, some of us went to visit Zac.
‘He’s lost movement from the neck down,’ his mum Gwen told me tearfully. ‘The doctors don’t know if he’ll ever regain it.’
I hugged Zac, unable to find the words to comfort him.
We weren’t exactly dating, but we were close, and I’d been gradually growing more fond of him.
Over the next few weeks, I found myself visiting him more often, even though I was busy at college.
Despite his prognosis, Zac seemed determined to prove the doctors wrong.
‘This is going to be a long, bumpy road and some days will be harder than others, but I can do this,’ he told me.
One day, I was pushing Zac in his wheelchair in the hospital grounds.
‘Will you be my girlfriend?’ he asked me.
‘Of course!’ I replied, ecstatic.
Each day, Zac got stronger, and I cried tears of joy when he finally wheeled himself down the hospital corridor without help.
While others might have been questioning a future with someone so severely injured, it never crossed my mind.
His determination just made me love him more.
Eventually, Zac returned home to his mum and dad, and we started dating regularly.
'This is going to be a long, bumpy road'
The following Valentine’s Day, Zac suggested we drive out to a restaurant.
After we’d eaten dinner, we ordered desserts.
The waiter brought out a large bowl of strawberries, and written on top in chocolate were the words: Will you marry me?
‘Yes!’ I cried.
Later that night, Zac turned to me with a serious look on his face.
‘I’m going to walk down the aisle,’ he said.
I had no doubt he would.
He started practising while wearing support braces with his physiotherapists.
The following year, we got married in our local church, in front of 500 family and friends.
I stood at the altar with my dad, Rick, and when I saw Zac walking towards me, I couldn’t stop crying with pride.
We soon settled into married life, and started trying for a baby.
But a year on, nothing had happened, so we tried IVF.
When I got pregnant the first time, I was delighted and excited, but sadly I miscarried at eight weeks.
Then it happened a second time.
‘I can’t do it again,’ I said to Zac.
The emotional turmoil was too much.
So we decided to take a break.
The following year, we started IUI — a less invasive treatment.
Again, I got pregnant twice, but lost the babies.
By now, I was desperate to be a mum.
‘Maybe we should try adoption?’ I said to Zac.
In the meantime, we’d been accepted for embryo implantation.
The first attempt ended yet again in miscarriage, but we decided to give it a final go.
Then one evening, a neighbour called.
‘I heard you wanted to adopt,’ he said. ‘I know someone whose daughter might be looking for a couple to adopt her unborn baby.’
He gave us the details.
Nervously, I called her.
‘I don’t want to give my baby up, but I feel I have no choice,’ she explained. ‘Can we meet?’
‘We’d love to,’ I replied.
'Maybe we should try adoption?'
Next week, we pulled up outside a café to meet the young, pregnant woman.
She was already a single mum, and told us she couldn’t manage with another child.
‘I’d really like you to adopt my baby girl,’ she said.
Then she took out two wrapped-up little packages, and handed them to us.
Inside, were two baby outfits, each of which read: Will you be my mummy? and Will you be my daddy?
I was speechless, and so was Zac.
‘I think we should call her Charlie, after the restaurant where we met her mum,’ Zac said afterwards.
I dared not hope too much, especially as the next embryo-implantation date was nearing.
A couple of weeks later, doctors transferred three embryos.
‘The chances of having triplets is just one per cent,’ the doctor reassured us.
I felt like it would be a miracle if I had even one healthy baby.
A few weeks later, I took a test and the blue line appeared, telling me I was pregnant.
I was happy, but as I’d been in this situation many times before, I didn’t let myself get too excited.
By now, I was going with Charlie’s birth mum to each of her scans and appointments.
And as the weeks passed and I was still pregnant, I couldn’t believe my luck.
Then at eight weeks, we went for our first ultrasound.
‘Please tell me there’s a baby in there,’ I said to the sonographer.
She looked closely.
‘There’s one baby. Oh, there’s two. Oh my goodness, there’s three!’ she cried.
Next to me I heard Zac gasp, but I couldn’t say anything.
All I could think about was all the things that could possibly go wrong with a triplet pregnancy.
But things didn’t go wrong!
I carried on going to appointments with Charlie’s birth mum, and each scan for my triplets showed them growing well.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant, doctors induced Charlie’s birth mum, and our beautiful baby daughter was born weighing 6lb 13oz.
I even got to cut the cord.
We took our baby home and couldn’t quite believe she was ours.
But I knew we didn’t have long until our lives would be turned upside down, with three more babies.
Doctors said I could make it to 37 weeks — but at 30 weeks, I woke up, feeling strange.
Zac drove me to hospital, where doctors told me I was already dilating.
‘We need to deliver your babies today,’ they said.
‘Surely it’s too early!’ I panicked to Zac.
A huge team of doctors and nurses assembled, with cots labelled baby A, baby B and baby C.
First to arrive was our son, Knox, weighing 2lb 10oz; then came our daughter, Navie, weighing 2lb 12oz, and last, another girl, Noa, who was 3lb 1oz.
I couldn’t see much, but I could tell by the worried look on Zac’s face that they were tiny.
Five hours later, we were taken to see them in the neonatal unit.
Knox was so small that Zac could fit his wedding band on his wrist.
But they were healthy, and simply needed to grow.
Six weeks later, the triplets were allowed home, all weighing over four pounds.
Life is now hectic, with three six-month-olds and one nine-month-old.
But we have a strict routine, and work as a team, and feel luckier than we ever thought possible.
We waited a long time for a family, and we got a lot more than we bargained for.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Brittney Wolfe, 33