Giving birth to multiple babies at once is a blessing and a lot of work. There are a lot of things you need, and as many of us know, baby necessities are expensive for one baby, let alone three. Tayshana Jones, a mom in Norfolk, Virginia, found herself pregnant with triplets and didn’t have the resources she needed to care for her children.
To make matters worse, shortly after she found out that she was pregnant, her partner was killed in a tragic shooting, leaving her alone to grieve and to raise her babies. Suddenly, Jones found herself in a less than ideal situation and without a clear plan of how to move forward. But somehow, she found the strength she needed to go on.
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Tayshana Jones understands the pressure that comes with having triplets.
Jones was a single mom of two when she met her partner Johnny Burden, who she called her “person,” two years ago. They later had one child together, a son, and mere months later, she found out she was pregnant with triplets. She was fearful of keeping the pregnancy.
“It’s not that I didn’t want them,” Jones told The Virginian-Pilot. “I just didn’t want to be struggling.”
She believes that her grief over losing her partner affected her pregnancy.
In January of this year, Burden was killed when shots were fired into the car he was a passenger in. Jones found herself without a partner and alone with three kids and three more on the way. She ended up giving birth in May at only 29 weeks of gestation, which is early even for a multiples birth. She told the newspaper, “I think it’s because I was grieving.”
She now has to figure things out on her own.
Jones’ three infant sons, Kaisyn, Karsyn, and Kisyn, are in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, and Jones now faces the difficult road ahead of caring for three babies and providing for six kids. She shared with the news outlet that Burden was often the one who would find organizations that could provide resources for their family and things such as free diapers.
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Jones still has a ways to go to care for her sons.
“He wasn’t ashamed. He would go for help,” she explained about Burden, calling herself “prideful.”
Although she has been part of an apprentice program from which she’s supposed to graduate in October, she isn’t receiving any benefits, The Virginian-Pilot reported. And because she gave birth so early, she didn’t make enough money to be able to afford the $300 apiece car seats she needs for the triplets.
She is determined to succeed for her children.
“I always thought I could do it all my own,” Jones said. “I need to get out of that mindset.”
Currently, Jones and her sons have been staying with different family members for days at a time as her home recently sustained water damage. But she is resilient and knows that Burden’s memory will push her forward.
“I knew I was strong, but I didn’t know I was this strong,” she confessed. “Lord, please don’t give me another test.”
