Nia and her husband Robert Tolbert had a loving family with a son. Soon, Nia became pregnant for the second time and then the third. But these two pregnancies were so rare that they even shocked the experts worldwide. So what had happened on earth? And why were the two pregnancies so shocking? Click through to find out the answer.
Nia met Robert via mutual friends in 2017. It was love at first sight, so the two began dating soon after. Though their relationship had gone through ups and downs over the years, their love kept going strong, and then they received a piece of exciting news.
Nia was pregnant with their first baby. The couple was overjoyed. In 2011, Nia and Robert welcomed a beautiful baby boy and named him Shai. The little boy had no clue that he was destined to be the big brother of so many children to come into the Tolbert household.
In 2014, Nia and Robert finally got married officially, though they had been living as a family for long. At that time, something was brewing and that would change their family forever. Nia got pregnant again. As they were wondering if the new baby would be a boy or a girl, then something unexpected happened.
Nia got a surprise when she visited her doctor to get the sonogram done. The couple was told that they weren't having just one baby but two. What's more exciting was that the two babies were both boys, just as they expected.
In 2015, Nia gave birth to beautiful twin boys and named them Riley and Alexander. They then had a family of five. Both Nia and Robert thought that their family was big enough. The couple was satisfied with three little boys, and they worked together to take care of their sons and keep things in order. But that's not the end of the happy story.
In 2017, Nia found out that she was unexpectedly pregnant for the third time. Although the pregnancy wasn’t planned, they prepared themselves and said that it must all be part of God’s plan. The household was abuzz again, this time hoping that they would be welcoming a little girl into the world.
However, having already gone through two pregnancies, Nia felt that something was different about this pregnancy. Nia noticed that with this pregnancy she was having stronger emotional reactions and her pregnancy hormones were surging, as she had never felt before. She was also getting bigger much faster than her previous pregnancies. Nia didn’t understand what was going on until the result of the first sonogram came out.
Nia went for her first sonogram she was both nervous and excited. "Robert and I have always joked about having a large family, but we did not plan to have any more pregnancies after the twins. But we were in for a surprise." The ultrasound proved that this time the pregnancy was a much bigger surprise.
The ultrasound technician eventually confirmed Nia's suspicion that she was having another set of twins. At first, Nia was shocked, but she came around quickly, seeing it as a blessing from God. However, after being asked to do another scan, it turned out Nia was carrying not two, but three babies! Once she received the news, she felt that things were kind of out of control because she’d no idea of how to handle triplets.
The same doctor that delivered Nia’s twins was scheduled to deliver her triplets, and he said that getting pregnant with one child, then two, then three is extremely rare. "We’re talking less than one in 1,000 [births]. That’s a meager chance for it happening to anyone in general," Dr. Tabbarah told news reporters. "It’s very rare to have to twins then triplets [naturally] in the same lifetime."
Both Nia and Robert’s sides of the family had a history of multiple births, giving Nia an increased chance of having multiple-birth pregnancies. But her case was still far beyond the scope of probability. Nia couldn’t wait to reveal the news to her husband.
Nia wondered how to share this exciting news with her husband, Robert. It just so happened that she was going for the weekend to Tampa, Florida and she decided that she would leave Robert with a goodbye gift that consisted of a picture of her sonogram, marked babies A, B, and C. She also included three onesies and a note, asking Robert to "please accept this gift from her and God."
"I opened the bag, and I saw a very, very long sonogram," Robert Tolbert stated." Then I saw three onesies in the bag … and they were numbered 1, 2, and 3." Upon receiving the gift and finally understanding what it all meant… Robert fainted. He was shocked and went straight to bed. Nia wondered why it took so long to hear back from her husband.
When Robert finally regained consciousness, he called his wife at once and congratulated her, despite his fears of the challenges that adding another three children to the Tolbert family would entail. Robert had thought that his gift might be a Fitbit as he had been hinting Nia that he wanted one, he never expected they were going to have triplets.
Robert got over the initial shock of having triplets and got right to work. He said that he and Nia had been adjusting and making space for their three little blessings. They had a lot of work to do as how they were only expecting one extra child.
Although the couple didn't want to know the genders of their triplets right away, they opted to have a gender reveal party where they would use the color of pop balloons to indicate the gender. Guess what? When the time finally came to pop the balloons, it showed that the three triplets were all girls!
Nia and Robert were thrilled at the thought that they might be going to have three baby girls. Finally, the household would be flooded with three boys and three girls. But the boys were disappointed by the news because they want the whole house to be full of Ninja Turtle and superhero toys. Eventually, though, they came around to the idea of little sisters.
Nia’s due date was on February 9th, but with triplets, none of them knew what would happen. Weeks before the due date Nia started having contractions. They came and went, then one day one of the doctors announced: "we’re going to have the babies today."
Nia gave birth to all three babies via cesarean section on January 30th, 2018. All the babies were healthy, as well as the mother. After 34 weeks and five days of being pregnant, their baby angels had finally arrived. "They’re so cute. Oh my gosh," Nia said with a huge smile on her face, when she held her babies for the very first time.
All of the babies were in between 4 to 4.6 pounds and in good health despite being born early. Two of the triplets were identical, and the third was fraternal. Nia and Robert named the fraternal girl Mackenzie, and the identical twins Zuri and Bailey. Nia also became famous for being the 1-2-3 mom, for she had in each of her pregnancies: a single, twins, then triplets.
The Tolberts certainly need all the help they could get raising their large family. Their friends and family all gave support. Nia and Tolbert also opened a crowdfunding campaign on Fundly to raise money to buy a new car to fit eight people in at once.
Besides, The couple decided to create a Facebook and Instagram page called Totally Tolbert to share the family’s everyday experiences and, on the other hand, to satisfy the public demand, as so many people were fascinated by their story and begged them to keep posting updates and pictures of the boys and their new beautiful triplets.
When asked what her game plan was, Nia replied "There is no real plan. We have no idea how it’s going to go." They just took things day by day and trusted that they would find a way to manage with having an even larger family, besides they were excited about what the future held for them.