Not being able to have a baby is one of the hardest things a couple can go through. Sarah and Andy Justice were ready to have a baby, but after trying for a couple of years without success, they decided to give up. Their next-best choice was adoption. After adopting triplets, they were beyond shocked and not nearly prepared for what came next. Get ready for a story that will have you in tears.
Sarah And Andy
Rocky Start
Sarah and Andy Justice spent three happy and married years on their own, basking in the light of early love. Then they decided that they wanted to try for a baby. They knew that it usually took some time to fall pregnant, but when the weeks turned into months, they decided to go see a fertility doctor.
Rocky Start
Looking For Experts
The search for a fertility specialist in their hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma wasn’t looking positive for the pair. When they received word of a reliable specialist all the way in St. Louis, Missouri they were determined to make their way up there. No distance was going to stop the couple from making their dream of having children a reality.
Looking For Experts
The Long Road
It was in 2014 that they journeyed to Missouri, which took them six hours to drive. After completing various tests at the clinic there, the doctors came back with results that would hit them both with a hard blow in the gut. The doctor said that Sarah would not be able to conceive a child.
The Long Road
A Risky Option
The doctor did offer them another option for becoming pregnant. In-vitro fertilization was their best option, but the treatment was not only expensive, it only gave them a 10% chance of successfully becoming pregnant. Things were starting to look hopeless for Sarah and Andy Justice.
A Risky Option
Money They Didn’t Have
Even though insurance companies cover many medical procedures and medications, a basic IVF cycle is usually not covered by insurance. A basic IVF’s cost can range anywhere between $12,000 to $15,000 but the costs were most likely to reach numbers of $30,000 to $60,000! After looking at their options, they decided that they needed to look elsewhere.
Money They Didn’t Have
Adoption Option
Despite wanting to be natural parents to their babies, Andy and Sarah agreed that they wanted to be parents more than anything. Their second option came in the form of adoption. The process for adopting a child is anything but easy. It took hours of filling in adoption application forms and paperwork to even be told that the adoption agency would review it.
Adoption Option
Test After Test
After their adoption review was complete, they had to take the home study. Even if it meant that they were going to have to undergo the grueling process of adoption in order to become parents, they were willing to do it.
Test After Test
Face To Face
After they had completed the home study, there was a series of interviews that Sarah and Andy had to take part in. The interviews paired them up with various prospective birth mothers – the process was draining, and even though they were determined to become parents, they weren’t ready for everything coming their way.
Face To Face
A Match
After a series of interviews with mothers-to-be, the Justices were given happy news – they were chosen to become parents! As expected, they were overcome with joy and started to plan their future as a family. They were determined to be supportive of the pregnant woman who was going to give them a baby. But then something happened.
A Match
Second Thoughts
Just when their excitement had hit a peak, it was their bad news that brought them down to a devastating low. The birth mother had second thoughts and declined them as the future parents of her baby. Understandably, the couple was floored and their hopes and dreams were crushed.
Second Thoughts
Déjà Vu
Even after being rejected once, the couple was determined to go for a second attempt. After they were granted a second interview, their hopes were lifted. The second mom-to-be agreed to have the Justices adopt her child, but once again, at the very last minute, she called it off. Andy and Sarah were almost at the end of their hope’s string, but then…
Déjà Vu
Three’s A Charm
A call came in from the adoption agency when Sarah and Andy were still feeling down-trodden. The caller explained that there was a birth mother who liked their profile, and even assured the deflated couple that this woman was different – that there was a new kind of hope this time.
Three’s A Charm
Scan Surprise
The birth mother greeted the Justices with a smile and felt an instant connection with them. She felt so at ease with them that she even invited them to join her at her ultrasound appointment. Once they were all huddled in the room together, the doctor proceeded to do the scan. The room was quiet with both hope and tension. The doctor suddenly announced, “I see three separate, strong heartbeats.”
Scan Surprise
The More The Merrier
It wasn’t only the couple that was shocked by the doctor’s words, but the birth mother too! This was not just one baby on the way to a couple who had been struggling for years, it was about to be a trio of babies that they never thought they would ever have in a million years.
The More The Merrier
Changing Everything
As soon as Sarah and Andy got home, they started to prepare their home for the children they were about to have. They knew that they were getting overeager, especially when they started baby-proofing the entire house, but they didn’t care. It was no longer preparing for a single baby, they were expecting three!
Changing Everything
A Call
Eight weeks before the babies were due, Sarah and Andy got a call from the hospital. The caller told them their birth mother was in labor. Quickly they rushed to be by her side, and before they knew it, three healthy 3-pound babies were born. Hannah, Joel and Elizabeth were about to meet their parents.
A Call
A Little Patience
Like any new parents, the Justices wanted to take their babies home immediately, but they weren’t able to. Since the babies were born eight weeks before they were supposed to, they needed to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit for a period of time.
A Little Patience
Not Feeling Right
It was just a week after the babies were born that Sarah started to feel ill. The first belief was that she was suffering from the stress of acquiring the babies weeks before they were ready to. Andy took Sarah to undergo tests just to be sure about her health. When the results were brought back, they were left speechless.
Not Feeling Right
Plus One
The doctor returned with the results of Sarah’s blood tests and announced that she was indeed pregnant! They had just adopted 3 babies, and now they were being told that they were about to have another baby, and one she would carry herself!
Plus One
One Plus One
Then the doctor had to clarify something in the middle of the jubilant disbelief. Not only was Sarah pregnant with a single baby, but she was pregnant with twins! This new surprise resembled the same surprise they had had just a few months earlier when they learned that they were adopting three babies and not one.
One Plus One
A True Blessing
Most people would imagine that the couple felt cursed for the timing of these two incidents, but not the Justices. They held that this truly was the answer to their prayers. After having tried unsuccessfully for so many years to have just a single baby, here they were with 5 of them all under the age of one.
A True Blessing
From Two To Seven
Nine months later the Justice’s family grew by another two young members, Andrew and Abigail. A year earlier the Justice family was only a couple, and then it was suddenly a family of seven.
From Two To Seven
Lending A Hand
It may seem like too much for a couple of new parents to handle, but it wasn’t without the help of family and friends that kept them going. Members of their church – the Tulsa Eastland Baptist Church – helped out by donating and even cooking food for the family.
Lending A Hand
Some More Help
When Andy and Sarah made their way back to work, they were blown away by the amount of support their community offered them. The help didn’t stop there. Donations of food, clothing, blankets and other baby products all flocked in from around their state – complete strangers wanted to help them out.
Some More Help
Playing It Smart
Having so many kids, especially around the same age, means that you have to be smart about how you go about your daily business. First they bought themselves a bigger van, next they needed to find a way to tell the babies from one another. This idea came in the form of painting their toes with different color nail polish.
Playing It Smart
Big News
With social media being so powerful these days, it was no surprise that the Justice’s story went viral and became and an internet sensation. News stations and Facebook were flooded with constantly updated information on the young family of seven. Their publicity would only increase soon after that.
Big News
Seven Plus One
Sarah fell pregnant again and before they knew it they were set to become a family of 8! When Sarah was asked how she felt about the fast developments of their lives while on the Today Show, she responded by saying, “It was something we’ve wanted so badly that we love it. We just really love having these children.”
Seven Plus One
More Than They Could Have Asked For
As we can only imagine, the lives of Sarah and Andy were completely turned around, but in a way that they can only describe as a blessing. Their 6 children, Joel, Hannah, and Elizabeth (the triplets), Abigail and Andrew (the twins), and Caleb (the newest arrival) only make them the special family that they never thought they would ever have.
More Than They Could Have Asked For
Grateful For What They Have
While being interviewed with Babyology, Sarah gave a clear answer to how she left about having all 6 children under the age of five, “Having a number of children is a dream come true. When you wait for something you appreciate it that much more when you get it.”
Grateful For What They Have