Through my hands, over the years of tending the tiny, isolated birthing ward tucked in the windblown fells of Lincolnshire, I have helped usher into the world roughly twelve thousand newborns. Yet a few oddities have lodged themselves into my memory like stubborn stones, and among them shines the singular triple birth that still haunts my dreams.
It began with a young couple expecting their first child. The father, Thomas, had been sent to our little town by the health service; he patched up aircraft at the modest airstrip that sat on the edge of the village. The mother, Emma, was a brightbrowed, fieryred hair of London, a striking beauty whose very presence seemed to set the air humming. Thomas, though born in the quiet valleys of the West Country, carried a steady, almost lazy calm that suited the oldfashioned rhythm of the place.
In the early weeks of their pregnancy they learned they would be having twins. Emma decided to travel back to her mothers flat in the capital for the delivery, but the labour burst ahead of schedule at thirtytwo weeks. On the night Vicky, a nightshift midwife, wheeled her into our ward, the main building was closed for cleaning and we were temporarily stationed in the hushed corridors of the gynaecology wing.
The oncall obstetrician, Dr. Diana Kroll, a seasoned and compassionate doctor, examined Emma and sensed something amiss: the babies were not settling as they ought. She warned that a natural birth could prove deadly, and so a Caesarean would be required. An Xray was taken to confirm the positions, and the images showed two small forms: one head first, the other feet first.
We prepared for the operation with a quiet determination that felt more like a ritual than a surgery. The first boy slipped out, weighing a fragile 1.7kg. While I and the scrub nurse tended his tiny lungs, the second boy followed, a shade lighter at 1.6kg. As the assistants lifted the second infant, a voice from behind the operating table called, Take the third!
My mind, already halfasleep, could not tolerate jokes; the twins were already minuscule. I snapped a terse reply to the crew, but a sharp cry cracked the air and made me turn. There, perched on the surgeons tray, was a third childa little girl, no more than 1.4kg, her hair as pale as moonlight. I stared, bewildered, for the infant had not appeared on any scan. The truth revealed itself: the two boys lay sidebyside along the uterus, while the tiny girl curled across them, hidden from view, a secret sister shielded by their bodies.
If Dr. Kroll had not insisted on the operation, the three might never have survived. We bundled the newborns together and, with the lone preterm cot in the ward, tucked all three into that single cradle. They fit, as if the universe had bent its dimensions for them.
All night I kept vigil, my heart thudding in synchrony with theirs. By dawn their tiny faces relaxed, their breaths steadier. The wards bell rang, and I stepped to the doorway just as a handsome man in a flightjacket entered.
Who have you delivered? he asked, breathless with excitement.
Congratulations, I began slowly, you have two sons and a daughter.
The news seemed to echo in his mind, each syllable a slow, bewildered chant: Two sons a daughter three children? How
I reassured him, and he sank into a wooden chair, his hands trembling as he accepted a glass of water. He was a newly assigned registrar, still finding his footing in a modest flat, his wages barely covering the rent. Yet now he faced a trio of miracles.
The infants stayed in the ward long enough to gain strength, and I visited them often, marveling at the living proof of natures odd sense of humour. Emma, ever diligent, wore a perpetual smile that lit the sterile room. It was the first set of triplets the village had ever known, and they were lucky beyond words.
The hospital administration promptly offered the family a threebedroom flat in a new housing estate, furnished with everything they needed. An extra visiting nurse was assigned for the first months, but the true hero of the tale was Emma herselfa radiant, unblemished beauty who lifted her children from the cradle to the world with fierce, unwavering love.
A decade slipped by. One afternoon I found myself in the reception area of the same infirmary, when Vicky entered with the nowgrown children, come to see their father. Two darkhaired boys, the spitting image of their dad, trailed behind him, and thena flash of fiery redpopped into the doorway. A sprightly girl, her grin identical to Emmas, raced forward, her steps echoing the rhythm of a dream.
Seeing that happy cluster filled me with a warmth that still tingles in my fingertips, as if the faint pulse of their tiny hearts still whispered through the corridors of my memory. The dream lingered, a surreal tableau of a remote English ward where three little lives, hidden and revealed, turned the ordinary into the extraordinary.
