Parents in wheelchairs get viral to share how they handle 5 children (exclusive)

• Even before Stephanie Woodward and her husband, Ryan, got married, they knew they wanted children
• By 2020, the couple got married, had bought land and started building a house. Within six months after they got married, they began the strict process of being certified for adoption and also began to try to become pregnant
• However, both adoption and perception proved to be challenging travel. Eventually they turned to ivf, which also turned out to be difficult

Even before Stephanie Woodward And her husband, Ryan, got married, they knew they wanted children. Stephanie dreamed of having five or more children, while Ryan preferred a smaller family. A little they knew that Stephanie would eventually win that argument, but perhaps in a way they had not imagined.

Stephanie, 36, and Ryan, 35, both grew up as wheelchair users in Rochester, new, the area, but their roads did not cross until later in life when Ryan applied for a job in the same company where Stephanie worked. At that time, she asked CEO not to hire him.

“I didn’t think he suited the organization well,” Stephanie recalls. “I saw his resume on the CEO’s desk, picked it up and noticed that he had his picture on it. I thought, ‘Who puts his picture on a resume?’ Then I saw that he was a Paralympic athlete and thought, “Oh, we don’t need that kind of energy here. ”

“So I told them not to hire him … and then (they) hired him anyway,” she adds with a laugh.

Not long after, in December 2017, the two started. In 2020 they got married, had bought land and started building a house. Within six months after they got married, they began the strict process of being certified for adoption and also began to try to get pregnant.

However, both adoption and perception proved to be challenging travel. The couple met many obstacles, including many workers who questioned their ability to adopt because they are wheelchair users, despite their specific interest in adopting children with disabilities. In addition, they met fertility struggle, with inexplicable issues that prevent them from getting pregnant naturally.

Eventually they turned to IVF, which also turned out to be difficult. Stephanie’s first transfer did not work, but the second transfer did – just because their daughter would be stillborn, which was devastating to the couple.

Then came a third transfer with two embryos, followed by an early miscarriage, and a fourth transfer that resulted in another miscarriage. When they reached the fifth transfer, their fertility clinic still supported but became more realistic about the future. At that time, Stephanie began to share her fertility struggle as a way for family and friends to follow their journey.

“I stopped taking the small pictures in front of the fertility clinic,” says Stephanie, CEO of the non-profit Disability Empowher Network. “We continued to go through the movements because I did not want to give up, but for me there was no hope left. I even planned an endometriosis surgery for February. I really thought:” Well, we will make a new transfer, and when it does not work we will do this procedure in February. “

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Just as the couple was about to lose hope, they turned to fetal care. In January 2024, they were placed with a 6-year-old boy and eventually his younger brother. But when the new parents began to settle three.

“We only put two there, and three came out,” says Stephanie. “So it was a surprise – a very big, shocking surprise.”

“We still had that idea in the back of our senses that everything can happen,” adds Ryan, who works with a small family business that sells industrial waste equipment. “So we didn’t want to get our hopes for a long time. We kept it for ourselves for a little while, even though we were extremely happy about it every day.”

As the time passed, people began to catch, including their two boys, who in the summer of 2024 told Stephanie that they thought she had a child in her stomach. So she shared the news with them, together with her family and Tiktok community, which has since grown to more than 61,000 followers.

As her pregnancy continued, Stephanie continued to document her journey online and shared Tiktok videos about her growing stomach and revealed the children’s gender in the hope of educating people about how she and her husband, as a wheelchair use people, parent.

“When I was pregnant, people commented and asked who would take care of these children, as if they thought I would just sit back and look at them,” says Stephanie. “I hoped that by sharing our journey they would learn and grow and release preconceived perceptions and stereotypes that suggest that people with disabilities cannot be good parents.”

After 28 weeks, in July 2024, Stephanie entered early labor and had to undergo an emergency. From there it was a long journey. The children were at the neonatal intensive care (NICU) for almost three months. Despite the couple’s lively life, they wanted to make sure that their older boys knew they were there for them during this time.

Stephanie says she would wake up every morning with them, help them get ready and send them to the summer camp. Then she would be at Nicu from about 8:30 to 17:30 every day. Afterwards she would come home, cook dinner and spend the evening with her older boys until their 8 pm. “Feed, pump, repeat,” she formed a video of her daily routine.

“Then we would have babysitters to come at 8pm, and Ryan and I would go to Nicu together until about midnight or 12:30,” she says. “We would come home, sleep at 1:30 and wake up at 06:30 to do it again. And we did it for three months. Ryan and I didn’t miss a day. We would always be with our children, and we would also always be there for our boys. We didn’t want anyone to question our love for them, and we always wanted to miss out on some of them.”

Eventually, the triplets came home – Mimi first, followed by Gigi, and about two weeks later, max. Stephanie shared her trip home from the hospital on her TiktokWhere it quickly went viral and collected almost 400,000 views.

From there, the mother knew that she wanted to continue to share her experiences as a parent and use the platform to train her followers about the accessibility methods they integrate into their daily lives. Her videos cover everything from how she and Ryan use wheelchair -adapted features in their home (for example, instead of a dressing table, they have a desk that allows them to roll under it) to the cribs they have adapted.

“We have cribs with French doors on them,” explains Stephanie. “Another wheelchair user gave us one, and we liked the design so much, we got two more and converted them in the same way, so they open easily.”

In addition to these adjustments, Stephanie and Ryan use tools that work well for them, such as rotating car seats. “The rotating car seats are really fantastic. We can put them forward and then turn them around so we don’t have to distort our bodies to have a child in the car seat.”

“We’ve done a lot of work to make things available,” she continues. “I have not encountered anything we cannot do to our children because it is not available. I wish, as a triplet mother, there was somehow a triplet carrier, but it is just not scientifically possible. But if it is one day, but if they create a school bus!”

Ryan admits that he is not a big social media guy and lets Stephanie take the lead, but he does not like the negativity that is often found online. But he has been inspired by how Stephanie handles it.

“There are people out there who do not have the confidence that Stephanie or I have with a disability, or the support I had grown up … so being able to see two people who have grown up with a disability against it is strengthening,” says Ryan. “Sometimes, when you respond to negative comments, it can actually show people that you do not have to listen to the negativity. My natural instinct is just to ignore it, but replying can be so advantageous. It makes others can see that they can push back and recognize what they can.”

“Being on this journey and showing people who are so powerful,” he adds. “I think some of the feedback we get, especially after shooting back to those who do not believe in us, help others believe in themselves. It is extremely powerful, and I hope to continue to spread that message as we move forward and share our journey.”

For Stephanie, it has been a transformative experience to share her story.

“I love when people say: ‘I have a disability and I want to have children one day, and your videos make me feel that it can be possible,” she says. “As a young disabled woman, I had no one to look up to or strive to be. So being able to show people that they absolutely can have the life they want is really a privilege. Getting these messages is fantastic. I also love when people say: “You have changed my perspective. I didn’t think that people in wheelchairs could have children, but your videos have completely changed my opinion.”

“But we know that there are others who may be hurt by it,” she continues. “If we can change the minds of people so that another wheelchair user does not have to deal with it, we have done something good. Our world should be better and everything we can do to contribute to it is fantastic.”

While many comments stand out against Stephanie, a message has particular importance.

“One night, Max was sick, and it was a tough night for me,” she says. “I got a message from a young person I never met who said:“ Listen, I have pursued your tictoch and thanks. I have really felt down about myself and my future lately and seeing everything you do really gives me hope. “How couldn’t you feel good after hearing it?”