“Look at all those babies!” the nurse exclaimed as she reviewed the ultrasound. Jenny Kate McMullan, already a mother of two girls under four, was carrying triplets.

She gasped. Her chest tightened. Triplets? “I couldn’t even speak, I was so shocked,” Jenny Kate said. “I called Paul and couldn’t stop crying. I thought, ‘Our life is over.’”

A greater shock was in store. A week later Jenny Kate learned that there were not three babies in her womb, there were four.

How will we get through this? she wondered. They would need a new house. How would they manage financially? How would she be able to care for her two girls while pregnant with four babies? What if there are complications? Will I ever have a life again? God, she cried, I need your help.

Over the next eight months the McMullans faced financial stress, an untimely move, health scares, an evacuation for Hurricane Gustav just weeks before delivery, and a thousand daily struggles. Yet, through the extraordinary support of thousands of believers, God met each need—one at a time. On October 7, 2008, at 32 weeks, Jenny Kate delivered four, healthy babies: Pallie, Lucy, Duncan, and Charlotte.

A Scary Beginning
The journey started with the news that Jenny Kate faced a dangerous pregnancy.

“When we discovered there were four, that was scary,” her husband Paul, a cardiologist, admitted. He reassured Jenny Kate that they would be fine, and that God would provide, and he even believed it. But as a physician he was aware of the risks, especially to a woman who’s only 5’3” and 115 pounds. “The danger with multiples is that they’ll come early,” Paul said. “A lot of bad things happen to babies when they’re born early.”

Jenny Kate’s doctor stressed that the pregnancy was high risk. He strongly suggested the “selective reduction,” a euphemism for abortion, of two babies.

“That’s not an option for us,” Paul responded immediately.

But the doctor pressured them. “If we had not been believers,” Paul said, “and if I had not been a doctor, we might have thought we had no choice.”

Instead, the McMullans returned to Jenny Kate’s regular Ob/Gyn. “He was just a treasure,” Jenny Kate said. “We told him that abortion was not an option for us, and he honored that. He said, ‘I remember that you’re people of faith, so we’re not even going to discuss selective reduction. Let’s just move on.’”

Now, with a supportive doctor by her side, Jenny Kate tried desperately to prepare for what lay ahead. She knew she needed help, but it was an emotional time and there were days she couldn’t talk about it. “I was in shock,” Jenny Kate said. “We weren’t celebrating the pregnancy. Our world was turned upside down.”

Learning to Ask for Help
With the little energy she could muster, Jenny Kate sent an email to a group of 35 friends asking for prayer. That email and future updates were forwarded to others who knew the McMullans, and then on to friends of friends.

The knowledge that people were praying took a huge weight off of Jenny Kate’s shoulders. “At times I couldn’t pray for myself and I couldn’t pray for my babies, but others could pray for us,” she said, her voice wavering. “It was a great comfort.”

Before long, emails flooded Jenny Kate’s inbox with words of encouragement and offers to help—more than 1400 over the course of her pregnancy. “We got emails from people we didn’t know saying, ‘Your cousin is in our Bible study. We’re praying for you.’” She kept hearing of churches who were praying for her—from the pulpit, in Sunday school, and through prayer lists.

One of the people God brought into Jenny Kate’s life was Ellen Bishop, a woman several states away who, with quadruplets and two older children of her own, had walked in Jenny Kate’s shoes four years earlier.

The two women corresponded by email and soon became friends. The emails began with practical concerns: What should Jenny Kate expect during her pregnancy? What did she need to buy? But what surprised Jenny Kate was the way Ellen met her emotional needs.

Having been there, Ellen was the one person who understood the unexpected emotions Jenny Kate was feeling.

“When I had bad days, I would email Ellen and say ‘I don’t want this,’” Jenny Kate said, “And she would understand. She’d say ‘I know. I felt the same way.’”

Ellen knew that this level of mutual understanding was unique. “Nobody else can really get into your thoughts,” Ellen said. “Others can support you, but it’s like we could read each other’s [minds].”

“I kept reminding her of the long term, not just looking at that one moment,” Ellen said. Jenny Kate worried that she wasn’t paying enough attention to her older girls. Ellen assured her that they’d be okay in the long run. “I was able to give her a real perspective that it is going to get better. It was a reward being able to help her.”

In addition to practical and emotional support, Jenny Kate and Paul had a network of prayer support that ranged from their church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, to South Africa and England.