Fort Worth couple had given up hope on having kids. Then fertility treatments kicked in

Sarah and Paul Burkett of Fort Worth are the epitome of never giving up, and they have the family to prove it.

After a decade of infertility Sarah Burkett and her husband Paul were surprised when Sarah delivered twins two years ago named Paul and David.

But, as they say in TV commercials, there’s more.

This past May they were blessed again with triplets — girls Hannah, Olivia and Emma.

And this is happening at an age when many parents are watching their children get ready to graduate high school, or are perhaps already in college. The Burketts are in their early 40s.

“I had given up hope. Between our ages, our medical histories, and our inability to get pregnant naturally, I really thought we were only going to be aunt Sarah and uncle Paul,” Sarah said. “But when I got laid off from my last job, I had to get on Paul’s medical insurance. When I was reading through the coverage, I found out that some fertility treatments are covered so we jumped on it.”

To borrow a thought from the title character from the Coen brothers’ movie “Raising Arizona,” the treatments worked with a vengeance.

Reality set in

Going into the first transfer, Sarah asked her fertility doctor what the likelihood was for both embryos to “stick” since they couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t able to get pregnant.

“Of course, there’s no real answer, but we were cautiously optimistic throughout the beginning of the process,” she said. “After the first pregnancy test, we were excited and less cautious. By the third test, my levels were so high we were just excited.”

Then, they learned they were having twins.

“Nerves started kicking in during the second trimester, when I thought I’d just be nesting,” she said. “About a week before they were born, I had to quit driving. It was getting harder to fit behind the steering wheel.

“Then the chaos of babies being born and a hospital stay for us all started the whirlwind that is now our lives.”

The more the merrier

Fast forward to the following summer and Sarah realized she was about to be 40.

“It hit me that we still had three more embryos and I was no spring chicken. At 35 you’re having a geriatric pregnancy and I was well past that point,” she said.

So she asked her doctor if it would be safe to transfer two embryos again to reduce the number of times she’d be pregnant, assuming all went well. Further confirmation from her obstetrician confirmed it would be probably be safe since her first pregnancy went well.

At the first ultrasound Sarah and Paul received confirmation that there were two heartbeats. Then, her aunt asked a question that piqued Sarah’s own interest. Sarah then asked her doctor the same question: Was there a possibility the embryos could still split?

“Literally less than a minute later, as he was explaining that they would have already split if they were going to, he found a third heartbeat,” she said. “I almost fell off of the table.”

Paul’s reaction was “Yay, how exciting!” And then he said, “We’re going to have to get a bigger car.”

Sarah asked the doctor if he was sure of what he was seeing. He was.

“I was glad everyone else was excited, because I was shocked and terrified on top of the excitement,” she said with a smile.

Sarah said doctors still have no explanation why, after so long, they now have five children.

It takes a village

How do Sarah and Paul care for five children all under the age of 3?

“With an amazing tribe of people,” she said with a slight chuckle. “My aunt lived with us for the first few months and helped with everything — all the time. My parents, my sisters, my friends, our sister-in-law, and all of the kiddos in our family have come to entertain the boys.

“I was worried about bringing the girls home from the NICU. The boys had been acting out — unsurprisingly — and were really struggling with why we kept leaving to see sisters ‘at the doctor.’ But my sister and my aunt stayed with them when we went to pick the girls up, and when we got home, all they wanted to do was hold them and kiss their hair, and ‘boop’ their noses.”

Sarah’s mother, Peggy Smyers, praised her daughter for keeping things together in chaotic — but happy — times. She noted Sarah has managed to find a daily routine until Paul gets home from work, and they have found a part-time nanny to help them keep track of everyone.

“Especially her two curious toddlers who believe there’s nothing they can’t do by themselves,” Peggy said with a laugh.

Peggy and her husband Terry also bring the boys to their home in the country with them. She tells their mama “They’re going to be farm boys.”

“It’s chaos at their house for now, and will be until they’re all a bit older,” she said.

Sarah said while they have enough room in their home to accommodate the family growth, they have closed in the formal living room and dining room so none of the kids are sleeping upstairs.

Going out

So far the Burketts have not had to go many places with the entire family. They do grocery delivery for the most part, or Sarah or Paul will make a run to the store — sometimes bringing the boys along.

“We’ve had one appointment where we were all at and the boys got very bored very fast,” she said. “Luckily everyone there understood and was patient with us. They were also impressed by how polite the boys were — someone sneezed and one of the boys called out ‘Bless you!’ The other one climbed up next to me as were checking in and asked the woman helping us how she was doing.”

However, Sarah said between the girls and the boys eating, napping, and needing diapers, it’s hard to find a decent window of time to get anything done as a group.

Sarah is a stay-at-home mom and Paul works for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department.

“As you can imagine, having five kids in a few short years has not been easy, but it couldn’t have happened to better people,” Sarah’s sister, Jessica Lopez said. “The thing that’s most inspiring to me if the fact that each kid is treated as an individual. They each have their own wants and needs and Sarah and Paul go above and beyond to make sure they are taken care of.

“My husband (Jerry Lopez) and I love taking the older two out to explore different things around Fort Worth, and after dropping them back home we’re always left wondering how Sarah and Paul do it. My sister constantly leaves me in awe with what a beautiful mama she is and I am beyond blessed to be their Aunt Jess.”

A large family

Paul comes from a family with eight children and Sarah grew up with five siblings. Also, her parents fostered at a children’s home in north Fort Worth for many years.

Paul had always imagined a large family like he had so all of these babies were a dream come true.

“I was pretty disappointed when I thought we weren’t going to get to have kids,” Paul admitted. “So I was excited when Sarah got pregnant with the boys. Then, with the girls I was shocked and ecstatic that it had happened again for us.”

More to come?

At this point, Sarah said yes, they would like to have more children, but she adds a caveat, “Ask me again in a few years when I’m in my mid-40s with five kids.”

Sarah noted that, ironically, if the frustrating, sad and annoying parts of their story hadn’t happened, they probably wouldn’t have their large family. She encourages other couples on the verge of giving up to remember the miracle she and Paul experienced.

“If the frustrating and sad and annoying parts of our story hadn’t happened, I would probably still be working and we wouldn’t have been able to do IVF. So I always think of how perfectly orchestrated our story was to have the kids we have and me be able to stay home with them,” she said.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that God did this for us and that these kids have a purpose. I guess my advice would be, as hard as it is, be patient. Be frustrated and angry and whatever you need to feel and give yourself the grace to feel those feelings. But also know that it’s all leading to something greater than you could have ever imagined.”