NICU Nurse Who Adopted Teen Mom of Triplets Has ‘Seen Her Blossom’ Into ‘Such a Hands-On Parent’

When Small, now 17, discovered she was pregnant over Mother’s Day weekend 2020, she felt unprepared for the journey ahead.

“I was 14, I was like, ‘I don’t want to be a mom right now,’” she tells PEOPLE.

She had her first ultrasound on August 3 and then learned she was expecting triplets.

“I was speechless,” Small says. “I was panicking, but I had no time to panic.” The babies — two girls and a boy —  were born three weeks later on Aug. 30, 2020 at only 26 weeks.

The teen was often by herself when her babies at Community Hospital North’s NICU. “I felt like I couldn’t relate to all the other moms on the floor,” Small says.

Mullen introduced herself and told Small she understood what she was going through.

“I wanted her to know that I was a teen mom, and that I knew how scary it was,” says Mullen, a single mother of five boys: Sevonté Sumpter-Bey, 23, Shai Sumpter-Bey, 22, SeQuayvion Sumpter-Bey, 16, ShaKovon Sumpter-Bey, 15 and JJ Mullen, 8.

Mullen regularly stopped by Small’s room to check on her and slowly, Small started venturing out of her room to find the nurse, who worked 12-hour night shifts three nights a week.

On nights when Mullen wasn’t caring for babies, but was working as the charge nurse, Small would just sit in her office beside her.

“It felt really good to finally have somebody to talk to that wasn’t on my phone,” Small says.

In January 2021, Small’s babies, daughters Sarayah and Serenitee and son Samari, were released from the hospital one at a time. But before Small left the hospital for good, she and Mullen both left notes for each other asking to stay in touch.

“I started hearing from her every day,” Mullens says, sharing that the teen would “call me crying sometimes.”

“I was really overwhelmed,” Small says. “I would just call Katrina and she would talk me down and tell me what to do.”

Mullen recalled worrying that the teen didn’t have anybody else in her life to help. “I began to feel like I was her only support,” the nurse says.

In March 2021, around Small’s 15^th birthday, Mullen and a friend drove an hour to pay the young family a visit and everything seemed great.

A few weeks later, Mullen visited again because she saw on FaceTime that Small’s son had an eczema flare up and seemed unwell. This time, she was given a different address and she found Small sleeping on the couch at an aunt’s house. Meanwhile, her son was covered in scratches, almost bald and had lost a lot of weight.

“I said, “You have to get him to the doctor today,’” Mullens remembers. “He’s not okay.”

It took Small a few days to find a ride to take the baby to the hospital. And once she got him to the hospital, she didn’t have anyone to babysit her daughters.

Coincidentally, Mullen was not scheduled to work that week so she offered to watch the two girls.

While at the hospital, Small’s son was diagnosed with “failure to thrive,” which triggered a Child Protective Services investigation. A case worker told Mullen that Small and her babies were all going to be removed from their home and placed in foster care.

But then, the case worker told her something else: Small wanted to live with Mullen.

“Would you be willing to take them?” Mullens remembers being asked. “I was dumbfounded. My brain was racing. I was thinking to myself how hard it was going to be for them to find a foster home for all four of them to stay together.”

“She was willing to help me when nobody else was,” adds Small.

Two days later, the family officially moved in as her foster children. And after 668 days of being her foster mom, on Feb. 6, 2023, Mullen legally adopted Small.

“I had nobody else to call mom,” Small says. “I’m not alone anymore. I don’t have to do everything by myself.” (A GoFundMe page has also been created to support the young mother.)

Small began attending an alternative high school and graduated with her diploma in June. In August, she plans to begin studying to be a social worker at Marian University.

“I want to help other teen moms, because I wanted somebody like that in my corner,” Small says. “I think I would be a big help.”

The school provided childcare for her two daughters. However, her son has a feeding tube and requires more care than the school’s daycare could provide, so Mullen shifted her work schedule so she could stay home with him.

“The most fun for me is being a grandma. That’s my favorite part,” Mullen says. “They are such a joy to me.

“They make me smile and laugh so much every day,” she adds. “If I am stressed or I’m in a bad mood, or something going on that I don’t know how to fix, I just sit with them or one of them will run up to me and say, ‘You need a hug?” I mean, it’s just the best.”

Now the triplets, who turn 3 next month, are “all thriving and doing great,” Mullen says.

The two girls graduated from therapy, and will enroll in a mainstream preschool this fall and Small’s son still receives occupational therapy and physical therapy every week.

Mullen is also proud of the “fierce” mom Small has become.

“I’ve seen her blossom from a scared teenager who has no idea how to do this to a total boss mom,” Mullen says. “She’s such a hands-on parent. She is with the three of them 24/7 right now. I’ve gone from doing most everything for the babies when they first got to me, to now she runs the show, and I just am there if she needs backup or if she needs a break.”

For her part, Small says that now she really likes “everything about being a mom”

And her kids, she says, don’t know they have a teen mom. “All they know is that they have a mom that loves them and I hope that continues,” she adds.