Natalie Tan, 36, never imagined her path to motherhood would involve a challenging triplet pregnancy, adoption, surrogacy of triplets, and heartbreaking loss. Today, she parents three-year-old Hannah and 19-month-old twins Luka and Elia while honoring four children held in memory. Her story reveals how modern families are built—through medical intervention, chance, and unwavering love.
In this intimate sharing, Natalie opens up about parenting multiples after loss, the emotional toll of infertility, and how she finds light in the chaos of parenthood and family life.
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Hello, I’m Natalie from Singapore. I’m a mother of three children here with me, and four little angels watching over us. The journey my husband Florian and I took to build our family was tumultuous, but where we are now is truly a blessing—even with the ongoing challenges we face.
Florian and I married in September 2018. Even before tying the knot, we knew we wanted a home filled with children. My fertility issues, already identified through visits to my endocrinologist, led us to try intrauterine insemination (IUI). Our first cycle was unsuccessful, but the second resulted in a triplet pregnancy.
We were ecstatic yet apprehensive, especially after learning about the potential complications of a multiple pregnancy.
The pregnancy progressed smoothly through the first trimester and into the second. We even hosted an intimate gender reveal party with close friends and family—we were having two girls and a boy! Just two days later, at 22 weeks, I was hospitalized due to bleeding.
After one night, I was cleared to be discharged. However, less than 24 hours later, Florian brought me back when a medical officer discovered I was already 5cm dilated. I spent the next 12 days hospitalized, fighting an infection while trying to keep our babies safe until at least week 24. Despite various antibiotic treatments—both oral and IV—the infection persisted.
Four days shy of viability, at 10:30pm, I was rushed into delivery as the infection threatened to turn septic. By 6am the next morning, our much-loved, much-wanted babies had come and gone. I became an empty shell of the woman I'd been just hours before. Florian stood beside me the entire time, holding my hand as we cried together, saying goodbye to our perfect angels after they were washed and swaddled.
In the weeks and months that followed, I often fell asleep crying. I returned to my childhood bed at my parents' house, where my mother would cuddle me until sleep came. My parents devoted every moment to caring for me—ordering confinement meals to nourish me, arranging postnatal massages, and opening their home to friends and family who wanted to support me. Nearly every weekend, our friends gathered around us. We attended cooking classes, yoga sessions, hosted cook-offs at home, or simply sat together in silence, grieving.
Our marriage certainly suffered.
After our loss, I was consumed by guilt, disgust, self-loathing, and profound loneliness. I believed Florian couldn't understand losing a pregnancy from a woman's perspective—just as I could never fully grasp his experience.
I hated that my body had failed me. I resented Florian for not wanting to try IVF after our first failed IUI attempt, for seeming to process our loss more quickly, and for wanting to wait before trying again. Looking back, I recognize that much of my resentment stemmed from raw emotion. My heart had a gaping wound, and I desperately wanted to heal it immediately—or so I thought.
As my health improved, Florian and I committed to long weekend walks for heart-to-heart conversations. We went art-jamming, took short trips, and learned to take each day as it came. We realized we both feared losing the other to depression, especially since we grieved so differently. I needed company; he needed solitude. I required therapy; he processed his emotions independently.
Image: Pexels.com/Seljan Salim
Despite these differences, we learned to hold onto each other more tightly.
Without question, I wouldn't have found the strength to keep going without our family and friends. It took time to understand that our loss wasn't ours alone. My parents had lost beloved grandchildren. Our best friends mourned the godchildren they'd eagerly anticipated. My brother wept for nieces and a nephew he'd never meet. Our children were deeply loved during their brief time on earth, and that love continues.
My faith became my greatest source of strength. I refused to believe our loss was meaningless. Yes, I was angry—I even tried turning away from God. I couldn't comprehend why He would take what He had given us. Yet I also recognized that receiving and cherishing these lives, however briefly, was itself a miracle. I realized I could choose to bring light into my darkness or let bitterness take root. I started a healing circle for women grieving prenatal loss while pursuing a Diploma in counseling psychology. With my supervisor, I conducted grief workshops for women who'd experienced pregnancy loss. I shared our story with hospital staff, helping them better support grieving families. Gradually, I learned to cherish the beautiful memories we'd created during our babies' short lives.
With my grief counselor's help, I began to accept our losses and created a memory book of our time together. The hospital provided memory boxes for mothers of late miscarriages, and I contributed a letter—printed as a postcard—hoping to give others strength and the knowledge that they aren't alone. Through This Little Ark, I hope to continue helping women navigate life after pregnancy or infant loss. This calling grew even stronger after we lost our one-month-old son in 2022.
Noah was Luka's identical twin, and together with Elia, they formed our second set of triplets. It was an incredible surprise, and despite our fear of losing them all as we had with our first pregnancy, Florian and I couldn't bear the thought of selective reduction. We'd already been blessed with Hannah in 2021—our unexpected bright spark. Hannah came to us through adoption and made parenting seem effortless.
Florian and I had always planned to adopt, but we imagined doing so after having biological children. After learning that my womb had been severely scarred from our first loss, leaving me infertile, we pursued adoption sooner. This news devastated us and further eroded my self-esteem as a woman. Even now, I sometimes wonder if I'm truly "enough" as a mother. But my support network constantly reminds me that motherhood encompasses far more than pregnancy—that while significant, pregnancy is just one small part of the parenting journey.
Hannah brought us such joy that we decided to expand our family further. Since my ovaries were unaffected by the scarring, we pursued IVF with a surrogate overseas. After multiple failed transfers, our surrogate finally became pregnant with triplet boys when one of two embryos split.
The boys were delivered via emergency C-section at 28 weeks when Elia's placenta tore and our surrogate began to dilate. At two weeks old, Noah was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis, and he passed away from sepsis at 32 days.
Grieving Noah was more complicated because we had his living siblings to consider. I held back many tears for Hannah's sake—she never got to meet Noah.
With Luka and Elia still in the NICU, I had to stay strong during my daily visits. Processing Noah's death took longer because I was so focused on caring for Hannah, Luka, and Elia. But grief has a way of surfacing when ignored—it seeps through cracks when least expected, threatening to overwhelm if not addressed. Reflecting on the lessons Noah taught me in his short life, I chose to honor his memory through This Little Ark.
Luka and Elia are our little warriors, and I know Noah lives through them. They spent three months in the NICU before coming home a week and a half after their original due date. Both continue with physiotherapy and regular checkups with their neonatologist. Luka has graduated from speech and eating therapy, while Elia still sees a dietitian as he has more growing to do. Some days, anxiety for them overwhelms me, but I'm learning to let go and allow them to develop at their own pace. This doesn't mean I'm not impatient—I absolutely am. I just try to manage it better.
I carve out time for myself in the early mornings before the household wakes. Each day at 4am, I prepare breakfast and take Nala, our fur baby, for an hour-long walk. This is my peaceful time, and my chance to reconnect with our dog, who graciously surrendered being the center of attention when the children arrived. During nap times, I alternate between yoga and cardio to maintain my sanity. I'm also building This Little Ark and my side project, Noah's Little Bakehouse, where I bake German cheesecakes using Quark (a type of curd cheese) that I make from scratch. Through the bakehouse, I hope to raise funds for the KKH Early Bird Programme, which is self-funded by the KKH medical team who've overseen our boys' development since they left the NICU. The program educates medical professionals about challenges faced by extremely premature infants.
I'm incredibly blessed to have Florian as my rock and my parents' unwavering support. Whenever I feel emotionally overwhelmed or miss our angel babies particularly intensely, Florian reminds me it's okay to pause. He encourages me to take a day off from homemaking—to see friends, get a massage or haircut, or do whatever might lift my spirits.
The challenges we've faced in creating our family have shown Florian and me that our relationship can weather any storm. We've also gained deep appreciation for the little lives entrusted to us. This isn't to say our children don't sometimes make us want to tear our hair out—they absolutely do! I still struggle with wanting to be the perfect parent while knowing I'll always fall short. And while I wish we'd never lost our babies, we wouldn't have known the three beautiful souls who now fill our home with screams, tears, songs, dances, dirty diapers—and immeasurable joy. Even as we cherish the family we dreamed of, we honor our little angels. Every August 23rd, I write letters to the triplets and send them heavenward with balloons. On December 1st, I light a candle for Noah. I speak of all our children to one another whenever possible, trusting their angel siblings to watch over them.
Now, as parents to three children under three, I can't imagine life without wet wipes! Or chocolate! But most of all, I can't imagine life without these three vibrant personalities—four, if we count Nala our dog, who we could never forget!
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Natalie and Florian's Singapore home now overflows with toddler energy—Hannah's endless questions, Luka and Elia's twin mischief, and Nala the dog keeping watch. Grief remains woven into their days: August balloons for the triplets, December candles for Noah. Indeed, parenting after loss means loving visible and invisible children simultaneously. Their journey proves there's no single blueprint for family, only the courage to keep loving through uncertainty.
We thank Natalie for her generous sharing and hope her story brings comfort to those walking similar paths, while reminding all of us that love and resilience can bloom even in life's most challenging circumstances.
Whether you're raising multiples or multiple children, finding a supportive parenting community makes all the difference. Join the conversation and share your experience with us!
