During the scan, as the doctor began her examination, she dropped the bombshell. “I’ve got something to tell you that might come as a surprise,” she said. Zahra’s mind immediately raced to the word “twins” or something similar, but what followed left them utterly astounded – they were having triplets! It was a momentous revelation that changed everything.
Among the three babies, two were sharing a placenta, while Cephia was on her own. The placenta is the crucial organ that provides both protection and nourishment to the baby in the mother’s womb. Initially, doctors believed they were dealing with identical twins – a boy and a girl. However, it was only during the 17th scan that they confirmed they were all girls. Zahra recalls being constantly tired during her pregnancy, taking naps twice a day throughout. She said, “I was so big that I was struggling to sleep through the night. At my 24-week scan, the doctor said I was carrying the equivalent of a 37-week baby. People used to say, ‘That won’t change once the baby arrives!’ But I definitely prefer being tired because I’m running around after babies rather than being pregnant and tired.”
The day the triplets were born, Zahra described it as the best day of her life. She said, “It was definitely the best day of my life. Of course, in the buildup to it, I was excited for them to be born, but I didn’t think it would be so amazing. I remember I heard the first baby cry, and I just started sobbing, then I did the same thing again and again; it was just beautiful. It was music to my ears to hear them all healthy, and they were brought over to me straight away for skin-to-skin contact, and then my partner had the same thing.”
Roya was born weighing 5 pounds 10 ounces, Adina was 5 pounds 2 ounces, and Sefia was the smallest at 4 pounds 4 ounces. Zahra added, “I had a planned c-section. We were told ahead of the birth that one in three triplets are born at 26 weeks or earlier. The earlier they come, there’s more risk of them not surviving, then the closer you get to 35 weeks, the less time the babies have to be in intensive care. Sefia was born quite small, so she needed to be taken to the neonatal unit for bottle feeding as she had low blood sugar. After that, I was just feeding her a bit more regularly, but it made me quite emotional because it was the first time the three of them were apart.”
