This is a sweet reunion that may just bring tears to your eyes. Years later, triplet sisters had the chance to meet for the first time after two of them were placed for adoption at birth. In 1991, 35-year-old Kathleen (who requested not to have her last name disclosed) learned when she was seven months pregnant that she would be giving birth to triplets.
Kathleen, who is deaf, was working as a mail carrier at the time. She was married to 58-year-old Lee, who already had two grown kids from a previous marriage. He was a long-haul truck driver, away from home for lengths of time.
According to Rikki Jump, the daughter who was not given up for adoption, her mother was "absolutely terrified" at the idea of raising triplets, adding that it would have pushed them into poverty. “They were not prepared financially to raise triplets,” Rikki explained. “And there was also the issue of my dad’s age — he was already getting up there in years.”
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So the couple made a decision to place two of the three sisters up for adoption. Kathleen received a sign that Kendall and Julianne Scavo, her other daughters, were meant to be together. “In the ultrasound that confirmed we were triplets, Kendall and I were both breech, and Julianne was head down. All the doctors said, ‘There is no way that will change,’” Rikki shared. “Well, somehow, Kendall turned to be head down with Julianne. So my mom was like, ‘OK. They’re supposed to be together.’”
So in July 1991, after they were born, Kathleen and Lee left the hospital with Rikki while Kendall and Julianne left with their adoptive parents, Ken and Tina Scavo.
Kathleen worried about making the wrong decision, giving two of her daughters up for adoption. But, she shared, in her heart she knew Kendall and Julianne belonged with Tina and Ken. Initially, it was an open adoption, so Kathleen was able to go and visit her daughters. But after a year, the adoption became closed due to Tina and Ken growing scared that Kathleen would change her mind. "We were scared to death," Tina shared. "We'd waited 6 1/2 years to become parents."
Though the families lived 40 minutes apart from each other in Colorado, the Scavos did not tell Kendall and Julianne about Rikki until they were 8 years old. Rikki, on the other hand, knew all about her sisters and often imagined what life with them would be like. “I adored my parents, but I was a pretty lonely kid growing on a farm. We were very isolated. My mom worked the graveyard shift and my dad was gone a lot on the road,” she explained.
At 10 years old, Rikki reached out to Tina and Ken to see if she could meet her sisters. Lee had died, and Kathleen was preparing to relocate to Missouri. The Scavos agreed to allow the sisters to meet before Rikki moved. “We met at a shopping mall in Colorado and it was totally anticlimactic,” Rikki shared. “They were pretty unfazed. I mean we were all super anxious before we got there, but then it was normal, sort of like meeting up with an old friend. They felt so familiar."
For both Kathleen and Tina, the meetup brought them a sense of peace. “She saw how happy and loved they were with Ken and Tina, and she knew she had done the right thing,” Rikki explained. "Tina said the girls were jumping on their beds when they got home and talking about how excited they were to have met their sister, but they weren't experiencing a biological pull toward my mom," which is something Tina admitted to being afraid would happen.
The girls have since been involved in each other's lives, and they're now 32 years old. “I know we will never have the relationship that we would have had if we had been raised together," Rikki shared. "But that’s OK. We have each other now."
