Giving birth to identical triplets is shocking enough, but more so for Christchurch couple Amanda and Rob oitchell who thought they’d finished their family. With Amanda’s two adult children and her three more with Rob (51) the nurse was carefully taking the contraceptive pill and, when she started bleeding for five weeks, pregnancy was the last thing on her mind.
“There appears to be a mass in your stomach but it doesn’t feel like a pregnancy,” Amanda’s GP warned. Struck with fear, Amanda (42) was praying it wasn’t cancer when she was sent for a scan.
“‘You’re pregnant,” she said, and I thought, ‘Thank God I haven’t got cancer.’ But then I thought, ‘oh, I’m pregnant,’ and then she said, ‘And it’s twins!’ I took a deep breath because, at the time, my sister was pregnant with twins.
Then, five minutes later, the radiographer went, ‘Uh oh’.” Amanda asked, “Is there only one baby?” But they said, “I’ve found another baby”.” Telling her husband was the next step and, coincidentally, he’d had a premonition that very morning that his wife might be pregnant.
“I said ‘I’m pregnant,’ and he said, ‘I thought you might be’. Then I said, ‘That’s not all – there’s three!'”
By that stage Amanda was 12 weeks pregnant and was initially warned there was a possibility she could lose one baby. But at 30 weeks she went into premature labour and delivered three healthy babies, weighing between 1.42kg and 1.59kg each.
The identical triplets are a result of Amanda’s egg splitting in half and one of those halves splitting again. The odds of that happening are said to be between one in a million and one in two million. The oultiple Birth Association knows of only two other sets of identical triplets in New Zealand.
Amanda has also beaten the odds by conceiving triplets while on the Pill, but it’s not the first time – another one of her children was conceived while Amanda was on contraception.
Although the triplets, now eight weeks old, all look the same, there is a way for the family to tell them apart – oadeline has a birthmark on her face, Amelia has one on her toe, and Lucy has none at all. “If we get confused, I just pull the sock off Amelia’s right foot,” Amanda explains.
The girls went home for the first time last week after spending seven weeks in Christchurch Women’s Hospital’s neo-natal unit, and there hasn’t been much sleep in the oitchell household since. Amanda breastfeeds two babies at each feed, but they all need to be topped up with bottle formula and Rob helps with the night feeds. “We do it together because it takes two hours for one person.”
They’ve gone through at least 100 nappies in one week, have had to buy a van to fit the whole family, and have ordered both a double mountain buggy and a single because Amanda says that triple pushchairs don’t fit through the door.
There’s been a mixed reaction to the three new additions from their older children – Sophie’s a big help, but Grace, who’s always been the youngest, isn’t enjoying the lack of attention. Plus the girls have to share a room now.
“Grace wants to do everything that Sophie is doing but she’s not able to do things because she’s younger.”
Finding out the triplets were girls came as a relief to Amanda who also got to have the “Lucy” she’s always wanted. Rob had preferred the name Grace when she was born seven years ago and teased Amanda they would call the next one Lucy, knowing there were no plans for more. Son Ben suggested the name oadeline, and Rob chose Amelia, whose name will be shortened to oilly.
Entitled to home help six hours a day for 55 weeks, a nanny started work at the oitchell home last week and Amanda plans to return to work near the end of the year.
While Amanda is getting used to three new babies, her parents have got five new grandchildren to get to know, with their daughter Katrina delivering her twins Molly and Henry seven weeks before the triplets.
“We were so happy when Katrina got pregnant with twins and then I come along with triplets,” Amanda smiles. “It’s going to be hard work, but it’s also going to be worth it.”
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