NICU Nurse Adopts 14-Year-Old Patient Who Delivered Triplets Alone

What does it mean to grow up too fast? For some, it’s picking up extra chores or navigating teenage heartbreak. For Shariya Small, it was delivering three premature babies at the age of 14 alone. Triplets born at just 26 weeks, each weighing barely more than a bag of sugar, faced months in the NICU clinging to survival. Most new mothers feel overwhelmed caring for one infant. Shariya was suddenly responsible for three fragile lives while still in middle school.

But in the quiet hum of machines and fluorescent lights of an Indianapolis hospital, an unexpected bond began to form. A NICU nurse named Katrina Mullen noticed the young teen sitting for hours by her babies’ bedsides, often without food, family, or comfort. That moment of noticing and refusing to look away would change both of their lives in ways neither could have predicted.

A Teen Mother’s Unimaginable Beginning

At an age when most girls are navigating middle school friendships and homework, Shariya Small was grappling with survival for herself and three tiny lives. In August 2020, at just 14 years old, she went into labor far too soon. Triplets typically arrive around 33 weeks of pregnancy, but Shariya’s babies entered the world at only 26 weeks. Each was so small and fragile that they required immediate and extended intensive care.

Premature births are filled with uncertainty. According to the March of Dimes, babies born before 28 weeks face the greatest risks of complications such as breathing difficulties, feeding challenges, and developmental delays. For Shariya, that meant more than five months of watching her children Serenitee, Samari, and Sarayah fight for stability inside incubators in the neonatal intensive care unit at Community Hospital North in Indianapolis.

The weight of her circumstances was staggering. Childbirth is taxing for any mother, but the toll on a 14-year-old’s body and mind is profound. The physical recovery alone is difficult; add to it the relentless anxiety of having three critically premature newborns and no reliable support system, and the challenge becomes almost unimaginable. Yet even amid exhaustion and isolation, Shariya showed up every day, sitting quietly at their bedside, willing her babies to survive.

The Bond That Formed in the NICU

It was impossible for nurse Katrina Mullen not to notice the young girl who lingered in the NICU day after day. Shariya sat by the incubators, often alone for hours, never accompanied by a parent or friend, quietly watching over her fragile infants. To Mullen, the absence of support was as striking as the girl’s determination.

Mullen herself carried the memory of being a teen mother. At 16, she had given birth and made the painful decision to place her first child for adoption. When she shared this piece of her own story, the guarded teenager in front of her softened. Trust began to take root in the sterile space of monitors and IV lines.

From there, a relationship blossomed. Mullen offered guidance on everything from feeding and diapering to soothing premature infants, while Shariya, still a teenager at heart, taught Mullen how to use TikTok. The exchange bridged their worlds one seasoned by motherhood, the other just beginning.

Still, Mullen could sense an unspoken weight. Shariya rarely volunteered details about her home life, but the frequency of her calls and messages after the babies were discharged revealed just how little support she had beyond the hospital walls. What began as casual check-ins quickly became a lifeline. Mullen listened, advised, and reassured, but beneath it all, she carried a growing worry: once outside the NICU, Shariya and her babies were far from safe.

A Difficult Homecoming

When the triplets were finally discharged from the NICU after more than five months, most new parents might have felt a mixture of relief and fear. For Shariya, it was almost entirely fear. Back in Kokomo, Indiana, she was living with a relative in conditions that revealed just how fragile her family’s future was. The three infants shared a single playpen and bassinet, while Shariya herself slept on a couch.

On her first visit, Mullen immediately saw what the teenager had kept hidden. The home was not suited for raising one newborn, let alone three premature babies who still needed careful monitoring. More troubling was baby Samari’s condition. He appeared extremely underweight, covered in eczema, and was persistently vomiting despite a formula change. Doctors later diagnosed him with “failure to thrive,” a condition where an infant’s weight falls dangerously below expected levels for age.

That diagnosis triggered the involvement of child services. The possibility loomed that Shariya and her triplets would be separated and placed into foster care. For many in the system, it would have seemed the only option: splitting up the four to ensure each child had a chance at stability. For Mullen, the thought was unbearable. She knew no ordinary foster placement could keep a young mother and three infants together.

It was at this point that Shariya made her feelings clear. When a caseworker asked where she wanted to go, she spoke Mullen’s name. The nurse who had once been her lifeline at the hospital had now become the person she trusted most.

Opening Her Home and Heart

When child services called to say that Shariya and her babies were being removed from their home, Mullen didn’t hesitate. Despite already raising three of her own children teenagers SeQuayvion and ShaKovon, and seven-year-old JJ she agreed to take in a 15-year-old mother and her three infants. Friends and colleagues thought she was stretching herself too thin. But Mullen insisted she couldn’t let them be split apart.

The adjustment was anything but easy. To make it official, Mullen enrolled in foster parent training classes. In the meantime, her living room quickly transformed into a nursery. Cribs, bouncy seats, and strollers filled the space, thanks to donations from family and friends. “It was like a baby bomb went off in my living room,” she later joked.

The reality, though, was often exhausting. For 668 days, Mullen fostered Shariya and her children, guiding the teen through the steep learning curve of parenting while balancing her own work and family life. At first, Mullen handled much of the day-to-day baby care herself, with Shariya observing until she felt confident enough to step in. Slowly, the teenager began to take charge feeding, soothing, and managing the chaos of three toddlers at once.

But this chapter wasn’t just about survival. Under Mullen’s roof, Shariya began to thrive. She returned to school through an alternative program, earning an A– average and preparing for college. Therapy and guidance helped her learn to manage her emotions and build healthier communication skills. For the first time since her children’s birth, she could envision a future that stretched beyond simply getting through each day.

Adoption and a New Future

On February 6, 2023, nearly three years after Shariya first entered the NICU, the bond that began at a hospital bedside became permanent. That day, nurse Katrina Mullen formally adopted Shariya as her daughter and, by extension, became the legal grandmother of Serenitee, Samari, and Sarayah. For Mullen, the decision was both practical and deeply personal. “Has it been easy? No,” she admitted in interviews. “She pushes limits just like any other teenager. But I love her. I’m her mom and I’m never going anywhere.”

The adoption marked a turning point not only for Shariya but also for the triplets, now thriving two-year-olds. With stability at home, they have learned to count to twenty, are picking up new words in both English and Spanish, and call Mullen their “LaLa.” The young mother they once relied on for survival has grown into a capable parent who always puts her children’s needs first, even in moments of frustration.

Meanwhile, Shariya has begun to imagine a future that extends far beyond the NICU’s walls. She graduated from her alternative high school and is exploring colleges with the intention of pursuing a career in social work a choice shaped by her own journey through hardship and the care she received along the way. Mullen has supported her every step, even launching a GoFundMe to create a financial cushion for Shariya’s education and long-term stability. Donations quickly poured in, raising tens of thousands of dollars and underscoring how much the story resonated with people across the country.

The Ripple Effect of Compassion

What happened between a 14-year-old mother and a NICU nurse in Indianapolis is more than a heartwarming twist of fate it is a reminder of what compassion looks like in action. Shariya and her triplets might have been separated into the foster system, their lives fractured before they had truly begun. Instead, one woman’s decision to step forward rewrote the trajectory of four young lives.

This story resonates because it challenges assumptions. It shows that resilience is not just about surviving adversity but about the support that makes growth possible. It also highlights the unseen gaps in our systems the lack of resources for teen mothers, the shortage of foster families willing or able to keep siblings together, and the ways premature infants begin life on a razor’s edge.

For readers, the takeaway is clear: change often begins not with sweeping reforms but with ordinary people willing to act with extraordinary empathy. Whether it’s stepping in for someone overlooked, mentoring a young parent, or simply noticing who is sitting alone, the smallest gestures can have life-altering consequences. Shariya’s future, now full of possibility, is living proof.