After seven difficult years struggling with unexplained infertility, a couple from the Laurentians suddenly found themselves with triplets.
“Even now, there are times when we hold the children and we say to ourselves “hey, we have three!” said Stéphanie Spidalieri, from Brébeuf in the Laurentians, laughing.
Three miscarriages
The 33-year-old woman, who gave birth to triplets in March, is still struggling to come to terms with it. She and her partner had been trying to have a child for seven years and had experienced three heartbreaking miscarriages.
“The project failed,” he breathed, after a difficult year, marked by the death of his sister and his nephew in a road accident. The couple did not consider fertility treatment or in vitro fertilization.
And even after announcing a positive pregnancy test, MME Spidalieri kept a cool head. “We are not alarmed,” he said, although he feared another disappointment.
Then, the announcement of triplets came with the first ultrasound. “They all have their apartment on the same block,” he laughs, about the three different eggs.
“It was a shock. You only see that in the movies!” said Eric Pilon. The father-to-be then traded his truck for a Dodge Caravan.
The couple’s expectations came true after 25 weeks of pregnancy, when the babies became viable. They also refuse embryo reduction, to remove one or two fetuses, not wanting to take any chances even if the pregnancy remains risky.
Stephanie Spidalieri finally gave birth at 34 weeks to triplets weighing four and a half pounds. “There are three of them, healthy, I couldn’t ask for better,” he rejoiced.
A boy and two girls, Xavyer, Julyette and Elyrose, united by the letter Y, which their mother saw as a symbol of three.
900 diapers per month
However, the task is overwhelming for new parents.
“We change 900 diapers a month, about 100 bottles a week,” said MME Spidalieri, who lamented the little help, financial and physical, offered by parents in his situation.
“If you don’t have people around you, you won’t make it,” he believes, adding that his mother comes to help him every day. “We are lucky because we have godfathers and godmothers,” added Mr. Pilon, about relatives and friends who take turns helping them.
The surge in inflation is also worrying the couple who have seen the cost increase. Soon they will need not one, but three new car seats for children, for example.
“It changes your life from start to finish, but it’s also the best thing that could happen to us,” said the father of triplets.
Multiple pregnancies, more than three children, account for only 3% of births in Quebec.
