Three times a mummy
Thursday 7th May 2009
I was shaking as I punched my boyfriend Tony's number into the phone. When he finally picked up, I couldn't speak. 'I'm… It's… I'm,' I stuttered between sobs. 'What is it?' he asked, worried. 'I'm pregnant,' I finally managed. Silence. 'Tony?' 'I'll call Mum,' he said, sounding shell-shocked. No wonder. This news had been eight years coming. When Tony and I had first got together back in December 1998, we'd known from the start it was right. Both desperate to be parents, we'd never used contraception. But I still wasn't pregnant a year later, at Christmas 1999, when I'd started to feel a funny numbness at the top of my left leg. On 1 April 2000, doctors at Guildford Hospital, Surrey, had diagnosed Multiple Sclerosis. They couldn't tell me how my condition would progress, but…'Can I still have kids?' I'd asked. 'This shouldn't affect your fertility,' the consultant had smiled. But still, nothing. Months passed and my period always came. The doctors insisted there was no medical reason why we weren't conceiving, which made it worse. 'Find someone who can make you a dad,' I sobbed to Tony after yet another let-down. 'Don't be daft,' he replied.
At the end of 2001, we went for our first course of intrauterine insemination (IUI) on the NHS. I'd convinced myself it would work, and when it failed, I was inconsolable. When our second attempt failed six months later, we were left with just one more chance on the NHS. I kept putting it off. We couldn't afford private treatment, so I wasn't ready for the future I'd imagined to slip away from me for good. It was over five years later, in August 2006, that I finally geared myself up to go for our third try. 'Just let us know when your period arrives,' the clinic told me. Only, now I wanted my period to come, it wouldn't. Two days passed, then three… 'Sorry, I haven't been in touch,' I told the clinic. 'My period's late.' 'Do a pregnancy test,' they advised. Pregnant after eight years of trying? Yeah right. But at home, I did a test. For the first time ever, a line appeared. So here I was calling poor Tony, who was sitting in a layby in shock. I'd done two more tests by the time he got home.
Doctors couldn't explain why I'd suddenly conceived. But being pregnant wasn't the biggest shock. At our 12-week scan, Tony peered at the screen. 'Is it me, or are there two heads?' 'Actually, there are three,' the sonographer replied. We were expecting triplets. I was in bits. We'd felt so lucky to have one baby. Now, we had a ready-made family on the way. 'Typical!' Tony joked. 'You wait all this time for a baby, then three come along at once!' 'Our bus babies!' I laughed. Days later, we learned that the odds of me conceiving identical triplets naturally were 1.25 million to one! And at our 16-week scan, we were told they were all boys. I was booked in for a Caesarean section two months early on 21 March 2007. But on the day, things became a bit more urgent. 'One of the babies is being squashed by the other two,' the consultant explained. 'His oxygen supply may get cut off.'
The first triplet, Thomas, was born at 3.42pm. He was followed by Charlie a minute later, and Antony a minute after that. Each weighed just under 4lb. I wasn't able to hold them for the first two days, as they were in an incubator, but when I did, it was amazing. At home, we settled into a routine. We didn't begrudge the lost sleep or 18 nappy changes a day. Three gummy smiles more than made up for it. Then last October, we decided we'd finally plan our wedding. 'How about the boy's 2nd birthday?' I suggested. 'Great idea,' Tony agreed. Along with my other pageboy, my nephew, Fraser, 6, and my four bridesmaids, my cousins, Chloe, 12, and Amy, 10, my mate's daughter, Stephanie, 8, and my niece, Jaden, 3, they led me and my dad, Peter, up the aisle. Seven months on, Thomas is the brains of the bunch, Antony's quieter and Charlie's full of mischief. Eight long lonely years, I waited for my babies, but now they're here, I can't imagine what life was ever like without them.