- When Breanna West, 26, from Caboolture, Qld, went for a six-week scan, she got the shock of her life.
- The first time mum was about to welcome not one baby, but non-identical triplets!
- Life as a new mum to triplet girls has challenges, but Charlotte, Isabella and Maisie have brought three times the love!
Here Breanna tells her story in her own words.
As I lay in the chair, the sonographer wiped cold gel across my belly.
Soon, the image of my belly containing three baby sacs filled the screen.
‘Surprise, it’s triplets!’ she announced.
At 25, I was going to be a mother for the first time – to not one, but three babies.
‘Wow,’ I finally said.
Working as a boilermaker in the mines, my partner Daniel’s FIFO hours made it difficult to spend much time together.
But after breaking his leg on a boys’ trip, Daniel, 28, had come home for three months until he was well enough to do his physically demanding job again.
On the mend, he’d gone away on a camping trip for the weekend, when I’d felt a little off.
Then I noticed my cycle was a few days late…
Taking a pregnancy test, I watched the lines developing – positive!
‘Holy moly!’ I screamed to my empty house.
Although we had planned on having kids, we’d imagined it happening sometime in the future, so it was a big surprise.
‘It’s a triple whammy!’
When Daniel came back, I broke the news.
‘I had a feeling you were pregnant!’ he said, pulling me in for a hug.
Arriving at the hospital for my first scan at six weeks, something was telling me there was more than one bub.
Having no history of multiples in the family, though, I anticipated twins at most.
So it was quite a shock when the sonographer announced that I was six weeks and one day pregnant with non-identical triplets.
‘It’s a triple whammy!’ I laughed.
‘I can’t believe there are three babies in there,’ Daniel exclaimed.
‘You’re having the babies tonight.’
Excited, shocked – and super scared – we got ready to take on the challenge ahead of us.
Squeezing my hand a little tighter on the very quiet car ride home, Daniel turned towards me.
‘I’m not wiping any bums,’ he teased.
‘Oh yes you are!’ I joked back.
Upgrading my beloved pink car to a bigger ‘mum mobile’, our days soon were filled with choosing three-seater prams and other items, and our nights were spent on the floor building flat-pack nursery furniture.
Returning to the hospital for my 20-week ultrasound, the doctors confirmed the gender of our babies
– three little girls were about to join us!
At my 28-week scan, the nurse advised me that my cervix had softened and the babies weren’t too far away.
I’d need to spend the next 48 hours in hospital for monitoring.
‘Get these babies out of me before April Fools’ Day!’
Soon after, I felt a pinching pain in my pelvic area.
‘You’re having the babies tonight,’ the doctor said.
An hour later, I was prepped and in theatre for a C-section, as the doctor said it was safest for our girls.
Sadly, Daniel couldn’t join me due to COVID-19 restrictions.
It was March 31, and I had a request for the surgeon.
‘I don’t care what you do, but you get these babies out of me before April Fools’ Day!’ I joked, knowing I was in good hands.
When I woke up, my first thought was for my daughters.
Daniel was now sitting in the chair next to my bed, eagerly waiting for me to wake.
He told me our babies had been taken straight into their humidity cribs in the NICU.
‘I still pinch myself from time to time that we were blessed with three.’
The very next day, meeting my girls – who’d we’d called Isabella, Charlotte and Maisie – I gazed in awe at the three tiny bubs.
Charlotte weighed 1490 grams, Maisie 1253 grams, and Isabella 1168 grams.
They had feeding tubes and were attached to oxygen tanks.
The next three months were hard, bonding with our girls while visiting them in the NICU.
‘I’m so tired of this. I just want our girls to come home,’ Daniel said, tearfully.
Triplet Pregnancies
- Being pregnant with triplets means carrying three fetuses at once. Natural triplet pregnancies are rare, occurring in about 1 in 8,000 pregnancies, but fertility treatments have made them more common.
- There are three types of triplet pregnancies: Fraternal Triplets (Dizygotic): Occur when three separate eggs are fertilized by three different sperm, leading to three genetically unique siblings. Identical Triplets (Monozygotic) result from the splitting of a single fertilized egg into three embryos, producing genetically identical siblings, though this is very rare. Combination triplets are a mix of fraternal and identical triplets, where two embryos are identical, and the third is from a different egg.
- Factors that increase the odds of having triplets include assisted reproductive technologies (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF); maternal age, women aged 35-40 have a higher likelihood of falling pregnant with triplets due to hormonal changes; and family history of multiples.
- Complications of a triplet pregnancy include preterm delivery (typically between 32-34 weeks), low birth weight, gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia, and a c-section delivery.
- Women having triplets are usually frequently monitored through ultrasounds and check-ups. Triplet pregnancies are often managed by a team of specialists and some women pregnant with triplets might need to stay in hospital during the third trimester.
- Survival rates for triplets have increased significantly thanks to advancements in neo-natal care. Long term, many triplets will grow up healthy but being born early can increase the risk of developmental delays and other health issues.
We just wanted our surprise triplets in their own nursery.
Finally, in June 2021, they were discharged – and parenthood officially hit, hard!
Endless feeding, bottle prepping, sleepless nights, dirty nappies and crying babies was only the start.
Opening the fridge, wine bottles no longer lined the shelves. Instead, 30 bottles of milk now sat in their place.
But with three babies comes three times the love.
‘I still pinch myself from time to time that we were blessed with three,’ I whispered to Daniel one night, with the girls all sound asleep.
Now almost one, our trio have found their personalities!
Charlotte’s my daredevil, while Maisie’s a shy, curious baby. Isabella is always smiling and happy – a little ray of sunshine.
And when Mummy needs a break, I let the girls do laps around the living room with their walkers while I hop over our baby gate and watch from afar.
‘Don’t talk to me,’ I joke to Daniel, when he catches me in my hiding place.
But we wouldn’t change life for the world.
After all, we’d always planned on having three kids – we just didn’t expect to have them all at once!
