When Nia Tolbert discovered she was pregnant in August something felt different. Her morning sickness was more intense than it had been during her past two pregnancies. As the mother of three boys, Shai, 6, and twins, Riley and Alexander, 2, she wondered if this meant she was pregnant with a girl — or twins again.
“I knew something was off,” she told TODAY. “All the symptoms came much quicker and much harder. My belly got big, much bigger. Everything arrived a lot sooner than I expected.”
During her first routine sonogram, the technician asked Tolbert, 28, leading questions, such as “do multiples run in your family?” This made her think she was right about being pregnant with two babies and the technician confirmed that Tolbert was carrying twins.
“I was sort of shocked, but we had been down this road before,” Tolbert said.
She went to the bathroom and began grappling with the thought of adding two more babies to her family. When she returned, the technician wanted to complete one more scan. That’s when Tolbert learned something unbelievable.
“She said, ‘Actually, there are three babies,’” Tolbert said. “And I said, ‘Can you make sure there’s not four?’”
As Tolbert gazed at the sonogram picture of baby A, B and C, she worried about her husband, Robert.
“I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell my husband and if he was going to come back home after I told him,” she said.
A few days later Tolbert was going to Tampa, Florida, for a weekend getaway, and she decided to leave Robert a note and a gift. The note explained that she loved him and the gift was a picture of the sonogram plus three onesies. When Robert opened his present, which he hoped was a Fitbit, he instead discovered that he was doubling his family.
“I passed out,” Robert, 31, said. “I blinked a couple of times and thought, ‘Whoa, this is real life.’”
After adjusting to the idea of six children, the Tolberts feel confident they can manage a half dozen.
“We are a really good team. We are able to tag team to get things done,” she said. “That is why we are not as apprehensive.”
The family held a gender reveal party several weeks ago and learned that three girls will be joining their three boys in February. While the twins are too young to truly understand what’s happening, Shai is excited — and a little bummed out.
“He was disappointed because he wants our house to be full of superheroes and Ninja Turtles,” Robert explained.
While multiple births run in both Tolbert and Robert’s families, Tolbert remains unsure why she had twins then triplets. The twins are identical so that means an egg split (experts thinks this happens by chance), but this time Nia released three eggs. Her doctor never told her of any reason behind it. Though, Nia noted they’re not curious to know if she would have multiples again.
“Absolutely not. I am confident we are not having any more children,” she said.