Alex and Amy Lindsay were left in ‘total sʜᴏᴄᴋ’ when they attended their 12-week appointment expecting to see one baby – only to learn there were three on the way. The couple, who already had Elijah, 4, and two-year-old Zion, are now proud parents to five little boys. Estimates vary, but experts believe the odds of having identical triplets are anything from one in 60,000 to one in 200m.
Amy gave birth to Abel, Asher, and Azariah in July at Sunderland Royal Hospital after 35 weeks of pregnancy. “I felt really blessed. It was a high ʀɪsᴋ pregnancy, but they all got to really good weights. However, it was very difficult by the end of my pregnancy. Even getting dressed is difficult, and I was in ᴘᴀɪɴ just sitting down.
They’re very settled babies, but the biggest challenge comes at feeding time when you’ve got three babies all wanting to be fed at the same time. I’ve been breast-feeding them but have been topping it up with bottle feeds, which also allows me to get support from Alex and my mother,” she said.
Hubby Alex added, “There’s always a ʀɪsᴋ when having triplets, but they were all really healthy and a good weight.”
Abel was 6lb 2, Asher 5lb 12 and Azariah 5lb 11. Amy, 31, recalled the sʜᴏᴄᴋ of her first scan appointment, adding, “Alex said he could see quite a lot of movement on the scan. That’s when the sonographer asked if there was a history of twins in the family and revealed there were two babies. We already have two little boys and so this was already a massive sʜᴏᴄᴋ, I tried to calm myself down. It was then that the sonographer suddenly gasped – you could tell even behind the mask.”
The couple, of Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, were concerned at first in case there was “something wrong.”
“At that point, I got quite emotional. The plan was that this would be our last child, and with two boys under four, I wondered how we would cope. I just kept thinking, ‘I’ve only got two arms, how am I going to hold and feed them?’” added Amy.
Alex, 33, added, “I remember telling my mother-in-law, and she thought we were joking. She wouldn’t believe us until we showed her the scan. But we feel blessed. We are lucky we live in a four-bedroom detached house, but space is an issue. We’ve had to move our dining table and chairs to make more room. My friends keep joking that when the boys are older we can start our own 5-a-side team.”