Ellen Campbell and her husband, James, thought they had a full house when their twin boys, Finley and Malachy, arrived in July 2023. But life had another surprise in store. At the end of last month, the couple welcomed three more babies \u2014 daughters Mabel, Sadie, and Lily.<\/p>\n
The girls were born at 33 weeks and spent two weeks in the neonatal unit at Ulster Hospital. Now back home, the family of seven is settling into a new rhythm.<\/p>\n
Smiling at the whirlwind their life has become, Ellen recalled, \u201cAfter we had Finley and Malachy, we imagined adding just one more baby to complete our family. I booked an early scan, thinking it would be routine. We were stunned when the midwife said, \u2018There are three babies in there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed as she remembered the moment: \u201cJames went silent in the corner. I don\u2019t think either of us could process it at first. Even now it doesn\u2019t fully feel real. We spent the whole drive home in disbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n
With two boys and now three girls \u2014 including a pair of identical twin sisters \u2014 Ellen says the family feels extra special. \u201cSadie and Lily are identical, and little Mabel makes the trio complete. Having twin boys followed by triplet girls\u2026 it\u2019s rare, and it feels like such a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girls\u2019 birthday, October 30, turned out to be one of the busiest days the hospital has seen, with 16 births, including three sets of twins in addition to the Campbells\u2019 triplets.<\/p>\n
When asked how she keeps track of who\u2019s who, Ellen admitted it\u2019s a learning curve. \u201cTo me, Mabel looks quite different to her sisters. Right now Sadie is a bit bigger than Lily, but as Lily grows, it will get harder. They\u2019ve still got their hospital ID bands on to help us. Everyone keeps suggesting painting one toenail a different colour on each baby \u2014 we might end up doing that! For now, the labels stay.\u201d<\/p>\n
James echoed the excitement and the adjustment ahead. \u201cThis is our new normal,\u201d he said. \u201cWe work well as a team, and our families have been amazing. We can\u2019t wait to have everyone at home together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellen decided to share their story in recognition of World Prematurity Day, which raises awareness of the experiences of families with early arrivals and honours the healthcare teams who support them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff at Ulster have been incredible,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019ve become like family to us. They\u2019ve cared for our girls around the clock and made the past two weeks so much easier. The girls have grown so much already \u2014 that\u2019s all thanks to the team here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overflowing with happiness, Ellen joked, \u201cWe\u2019re over the moon\u2026 we\u2019re practically building a football team!\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to life at home, she added, \u201cHaving all seven of us under one roof will be such a relief. The girls are going home earlier than expected \u2014 five weeks earlier, actually \u2014 and we\u2019re just so excited. We can\u2019t believe how well they\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ellen Campbell and her husband, James, thought they had a full house when their twin boys, Finley and Malachy, arrived in July 2023. But life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-viral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1268,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/1268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}