Kindness is something everyone should practice as often as they can. When this young teenage mother felt like she had no one in the world, a kind nurse who was there after she gave birth stepped into becoming her guardian angel… quite literally.
Keep reading this story to learn the true value of kindness and how it can change a life…
A neonatal nurse named Katrina Mullen noticed something peculiar about one of the young mothers in her ward. She saw that the 14-year-old young mother who gave birth at her Indiana hospital always seemed to be alone.
“She’d be there alone for days at a time sitting at her babies’ bedside,” Mullen recalled about the young 14-year-old girl.
The 14-year-old young mother to triplets named Shariya Small was always on her own. The teenager was in the 8th grade at the time and never shared or volunteered any information about her family. And Mullen knew better than to pry. While she did wonder why the girl never had food with her and was always on her own, she never asked any questions and let the girl decide for herself when she wanted to volunteer any information about her life.
“I knew if I gave her time, she’d likely open up to me,” Mullen says about the time.
Shariya Small’s triplets Serenitee, Samari and Sarayah, were born at 26 weeks gestation in 2020. Because they were premature they spent 5 months in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Community Hospital North in Indianapolis.
Mullen was incredibly patient with young Small and taught her about newborn care while the young girl in return taught Mullen about TikTok. Soon the women developed a healthy bond but Small had still not opened up about her personal life to Mullen.
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While they were close, the two women only started to develop a close bond when Mullen confided in the teen mother how she had also given up a baby when she was 16 years old.
“Something shifted after I told her that I was a teen mom,” Mullen said. “That’s when we really developed trust.”
Small then confessed to Mullen that she felt people judged her status as a teen mother. “I never judged her,” Mullen said.
Before her triplets were discharged, Mullen gave the new mother her number and told her to reach out if she needed any help or advice when it came to her babies and their care.
“I said, ‘If you need anything, you just call me. If you need to talk, or you have a question, I’m here,” Mullen recalled telling her.
Soon after, Small began texting and FaceTiming the nurse often.
“I’d help her when she was crying and overwhelmed. I couldn’t fix it, but I would listen and support her and be like, ‘You can do this,’” Mullen recalls of the time. “But I was becoming increasingly concerned about her support system. I couldn’t figure out why she was calling me so often.”
On her day off, Mullen decided to drive an hour away to Kokomo, Indiana to see Small and her triplets. She wanted to see how they were coping and what she saw shocked her. The young family of four was staying with a relative where the newborns were sleeping together in an infant playpen and the young mom was relegated to a couch.
“It was not a place for her to raise babies,” Mullen remembered of the place.
Mullen was most concerned about Small’s son Samari who had digestive problems since birth and looked “extremely skinny.” She also recalled that he was covered in eczema.
Small explained how a doctor had switched the infant’s formula but he was still throwing up constantly and losing weight.
The infant was taken to a hospital nearby where he was diagnosed with failure to thrive. This is when a child’s weight measurements fall short of the third or fifth percentile due to improper or inadequate nutrition. The Department of Social Services (DSS) was informed about Samari’s diagnosis which is standard practice is cases such as these.
What was unexpected was that Mullen received a call shortly afterward from the Department of Social Services.
“The caseworker said that Shariya and her babies were being removed from their home,” Mullen recalled. “And then she goes, ‘Shariya said she’d like to come live with you. Would you be willing?’”
Mullen had to decide quickly. The single mother already had three children at home; SeQuayvion, 16, ShaKovon, 14, and JJ, 7. And she also had two other children Sevonté,’ 23, and Shai, 22.
“I knew it would be impossible to find a foster home that would take all four of them. No one was going to take a teen mom and her preemie triplets,” Mullen said. “I just kept thinking, ‘I have to do this.’ I knew Shariya was intelligent and resilient and she just needed a safe place to put her roots. I knew it would be hard, but we’d figure it out.”
Mullen was not a foster parent but she took all the classes to get herself properly certified. Her friends and family donated everything from cribs and strollers to clothes and bouncy chairs.
“It was like a baby bomb went off in my living room!” Mullen recalls of the time while laughing.
Mullen graciously fostered Small and her three babies for 668 days. During this time Small graduated from an alternative high school with an A- average. She is now touring nearby colleges and plans to study and pursue a career in social work.
Mullen is incredibly proud of how far Small has come. She talked about the young girl’s progress in therapy where she has learned a plethora of new skills and has become a wonderful young mother who puts the needs of her children first.
“In the beginning, it was me pretty much doing everything for the babies and her observing and participating when she felt confident. And now she’s in charge,” Mullen shares. “I’ll watch them if she wants to go hang out with her friends and stuff that teenagers do.”
“But I’m just her backup,” Mullen says happily.
Mullen is now Small’s official mother as she adopted the young girl on February 6 of this year. Mullen shared an image of the family on adoption day which quickly went viral. “I’m so proud to be Shariya’s mom,” Mullen gushes. “She just amazes me every day. When she’s frustrated with the babies, she never raises her voice. She’s just blossoming into this incredible woman.”
Mullen set up a GoFundMe page to “build a financial cushion” for Small and her young kids.
Serenitee, Samari and Sarayah are now two years old and are fast learning a lot of new words both in English and Spanish. They refer to Mullen as “LaLa,” she is officially their grandmother now as well.
“Has it been easy? No! She pushes limits just like any other teenager,” Mullen said in an interview. “But I love her. I’m her mom — and I’m never going anywhere.”
This is such a heartwarming story about how a young mother was helped in her time of need by someone who had similar circumstances in their own youth. This just goes to show how much kindness can make other people blossom.
Share this uplifting story with others to inspire them in their everyday life.
