North Texas couple expected twins and welcomed rare triplets: ‘Oh! There's 3 babies!'

Easter Sunday will be extra special for a North Texas teacher and her husband. The happy couple received an unexpected extra blessing on their road to parenthood.

Whitney and Tom Carreras are all smiles as they look around their hospital room.

“This is my son Caleb. He’s the youngest,” said the proud new mom. “Caleb means strong-hearted.”

Carreras pointed at a second hospital bassinet, “Over there we have Oliver … Oliver means life-giving.”

“And back there you have Bennett,” she said, pointing to a covered incubator. “Bennett means blessed.”

They learned of the pregnancy at a friend’s wedding in Montana. She said they hoped to have two or three children eventually, but at their six-week checkup, they found out they were having twins. That was not exactly unusual, since both have twins in the family, especially on mom’s side.

The weeks passed and the Carreras went to their 11-week checkup to see how their babies were doing.

“We were sitting there with the technician, and she goes, “OK, there’s one baby, there’s two babies. Oh, there’s three babies,” she exclaimed. “We had told her, 'Are you sure?'”

New dad Tom was stunned.

“Last time you said it was two,” he recalled telling the technician.

The Rowlett couple would soon welcome ‘spontaneous triplets.’ Doctors discovered their additional miracle had ‘selective birth restriction.’

“Really, what that meant was that he had a harder time getting nutrients and so he was just taking longer to grow, so at the earlier appointment, he hadn’t been big enough to be detected.”

Once their heads stopped spinning, Mom and Dad realized one thing for sure: They would need a bigger car.

“Yeah, we couldn’t fit three car seats in our current car,” said Dad. “It was just logical things that you don’t think about.”

They traveled to Houston for the next several weeks before receiving increased medical care and monitoring at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Dallas.

“It’s amazing,” said Neonatologist Dr. Tala Brack with a big smile. “Obviously, we get very attached to all our babies, but there’s something special when there’s a multiple birth.”

The rare triplets came into the world on March 31, at 30 weeks and three days, just short of the 32-week goal. Brack began caring for the babies in the NICU and explained why this case is so special.

“We never think anything is rare in the NICU because everything comes to us that’s slightly unusual, but a natural triplet birth is about 1 in 10,000 pregnancies, so very, very rare,” she explained.

Births involving ‘natural’ multiples mean the couple did not undergo fertility treatments, like IVF.

“There was no fertility treatments or anything just naturally occurring,” said Dad.

“Miracle,” added Mom.

As to how ‘Baby B’ may have been missed during the first checkup, Brack smiled and said it’s possible his brothers were blocking his view.

“Bennett was just so much smaller than his brothers that initially they didn’t see [him,]” said Brack.

Brothers Caleb and Bennett are identical twins, and Oliver is their fraternal twin.

Initially, “we had two little, they both happened to be boys, (if they’re fraternal, they could be different sexes) but they were both boys,” explained Brack. “And then on top of that, one of [Carreras’] eggs then divided into two. So, we ended up with two identical boys and then another boy, so a total of three. So, identical twins plus a fraternal boy.”

The doctor said that the tiny trio is developmentally doing excellent, and each is beginning to show off their individual personalities. Caleb and Oliver are breathing on their own, brother Bennett has some breathing support for now.

When babies are born early, doctors worry about the blood vessels in their head, which can be very fragile and lead to brain bleeds, said Brack. Fortunately, the Carreras boys have “perfect little heads with no brain bleeds,” she said proudly.

There’s Baby Caleb, the most vocal of the bunch, according to Mom and Dad.

“He’s very expressive with his face,” she said.

Then there’s independent, free-spirited Baby Oliver.

“Anytime we’d see him in the ultrasound, he’d have his feet crossed, laying back,” said mom. “He kind of goes to his own beat.”

And then, there’s resilient Baby Bennett.

“In our perception, out of the three, he’s the less fussy, he just kind of takes it,” said a proud poppa. “He’s just been a fighter.”

The family of immense faith said they hope their story gives hope to other expectant parents. They are also very thankful for the medical staff at Baylor.

“Just wonderful care. We are so, so grateful and now our boys are here and we’re really grateful,” said Mom.

Brack has not only been impressed by Carreras’ ability to keep up with breastmilk for all three sons, but also by the Wylie ISD 4th-grade teacher’s dedication to her students.

“I saw her sitting there writing on a notecard, a stack of notecards,” recalled the doctor. “I was like, 'Tell me you are not writing ‘thank you’ notes for a baby shower.'"

Nope. Mrs. Carreras was actually writing notes of encouragement to all of her students ahead of their STAAR test.

“I was like that’s ‘ridiculous and amazing’ and so I was crying,” said the doctor with a big smile.