Little miracles!
Born together but conceived two weeks apart, the unique triplets who really are...
SITTING in the spring sunshine, little Kathleen, Delilah and Tabitha might look like ‘ordinary’ triplets.
But the adorable youngsters are unique – the first triplets in the world known to have been conceived at different times.
First, their mother Jolene Broad conceived identical twins Kathleen and Delilah. And then, two weeks into that pregnancy, she conceived Tabitha too.
It means Tabitha is technically younger than her sisters even though she was born on the same day 18 months ago.
She was conceived in a process called superfoetation, where a foetus begins to form in the womb even though another is already growing there.
Only about two dozen such cases have ever been documented worldwide. They are incredibly rare as the human womb has evolved to stop concurrent pregnancies, to give an established foetus the best chance of survival. And this is thought to be the first ever such pregnancy involving triplets. Ironically, Mrs Broad, now 37, had been concerned she had left it too late when she and husband Toby, 43, a farmer, began trying for a baby.
Last night the full-time mother, from Canterbury, Kent, recalled: ‘I was 35 at the time and thought it might take me a while to get pregnant – if it would happen at all. So I was stunned to find out I was pregnant after only a few weeks’ trying.
‘When I went for my scan, I was half expecting to be told I was pregnant with twins. I thought I was too big for there just to be one baby inside.’
But as the sonographer ran the scanner over her, she asked if Mrs Broad had undergone IVF, which sometimes results in triplets. ‘I was puzzled and said no,’ she said. But when she looked at the monitor herself, ‘I could see the outline of my womb and it looked crammed with blobs. The sonographer said we were having triplets. I couldn’t believe it’.
Yet there was more astonishing news: the babies had been conceived at different times. ‘They told me there was a couple of weeks’ difference between the babies. It meant I had fallen pregnant the first time with one embryo, that had split into two causing identical twins.
‘A couple of weeks later I ovulated a second time in the same cycle, and fell pregnant with a third baby. The medics could tell the babies had been conceived at different times by measuring the backs of their necks.
‘They said it was so unusual that they’d never seen it before. I was just in complete shock.’ Her pregnancy went smoothly but doctors decided to deliver the triplets at 32 weeks, because Delilah had stopped growing in the womb. She and twin Kathleen were born weighing just over 3 lb (1.4kg) each, while Tabitha was 2lb 15oz (1.3kg). The babies were kept in hospital for four weeks before Mrs Broad was allowed to take them home.
‘They are doing fine,’ she said. ‘Tabitha was tiny, but she has proved to be such a tough little cookie – she’s the only one walking out of the three of them. When they are old enough I will explain to them how remarkable their birth was.’
Consultant specialist Dr Mark Sedler, from Care Fertility, said: ‘Superfoetation is incredibly rare. It is claimed to occur in rodents, horses and sheep. However, very few cases have been reported in humans. This case, involving triplets, is exceptionally unusual.’
The Multiple Births Foundation agreed, saying: ‘This is very unusual.’
‘Medics had never seen anything like this’