IRELAND’S tiniest triplets – born weighing just over one pound - celebrated their first birthday yesterday after surviving against all the odds.
Little Lucy, Ethan and Matt O’Rourke are believed to be the most premature triplets in the world after being born last Christmas Day - 16 weeks and one day premature.
The miracle babies, from Clashmore in Co. Waterford, all weighed over one pound in weight when they arrived at 6pm on December 25 last year but now have all tipped the scales at a bouncing stone.
The adorable siblings feature in the December page of the Look How Far We’ve Come charity calendar of the tiny babies who went through the neo-natal ward in Cork University Hospital over the past year.
Their father said they would be celebrating their first birthday over the festive season back in the neo-natal ward with the nurses who cared for them for the first six months of their lives.
“Last Christmas was very different,” said Pat O’Rourke.
“We were going around in a daze.
“We are going to bring them back in to the neo-natal ward to see the nurses. We never could have made it if it wasn't for everyone in Cork University Maternity Hospital.
“The nurses nearly thought they were their own because they were there so long. We can’t thank them enough for everything they have done for us.”
The babies have survived against incredible odds and are now thriving at home with their parents in their Waterford home.
“The first two or three weeks we were in shellshock,” said their Dad. “When they were born they had no lungs at all and the machine was breathing for them.
“At the start it was hour by hour for the first week or two and then it went day by day for another four or five weeks and then it was week by week. Gradually then you were building your hopes up.”
Their Dad said the first two months of their lives was the hardest as they were unable to hold their babies.
“It was two months before we got to hold them which was hard on us, especially as we were seeing other parents around us holding their babies.”
Ethan and Matt were born naturally while Lucy was delivered by emergency caesarean section before they were whisked straight into intensive care, where they underwent 18 blood transfusions between them during their six months stay.
SOURCE-IRISH INDEPENDENT
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