Wow, amazing story !!

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   This is from an old issue of Woman's Day (dated January 23rd 2006), but have been struggling to keep occupied this afternoon (*cough*at work*cough*)... 

Anyway, check it out !! Was completely blown away reading this... 

One in a billion

 Gemma barrett was pregnant with twins. Tragically, she miscarried both... then gave birth to a triplet hidden inside her womb 

Tiny Janaya Barrett is a miracle baby - a secret triplet who hid in her mother's womb. She never even showed up on ultrasound scans, but clung to life against incredible odds. 

Janaya weighed just under 750g and was no bigger than a mobile phone when she was born more than three months premature on September 7. 

"She is a miracle many times over... a born fighter," says her mum Gemma, 23. "According to the experts, Janaya shouldn't be here. They said the odds of her living were billions to one."

Gemma, mother of Dylan, seven, Kayne, five, and Savannah, two, was delighted when she found she was expecting again in May last year.

"At the scheduled eight-week scan, the doctor said I could be carrying twins," she explains. However, she began to suffer heavy bleeding days later. 

"I've always had awkward pregnancies and had miscarried four times before," says Gemma.

"The doctor said I'd almost certainly miscarried again - but when he examined me, there was still a heartbeat. It seemed there had been two babies after all, and I'd miscarried one."

In August, two months after her first miscarriage and 18 weeks into her pregnancy, Gemma felt a sharp pain in her side and realised she was going to lose her second baby.

"It was much worse this time, because the baby was so much more developed," says Gema. The first sign that a miracle was at work came just a week later.

"My tummy was swollen and I still felt pregnant," she recalls. Her doctor thought it may have been a phantom pregnancy, but...

"When he examined me, he found a heartbeat and shouted 'My God, you're pregnant again!'"

Further tests confirmed it was a live foetus - the third of triplets.

A month later, Gemma went into labour. She struggled for three days in hospital and was given drugs to help develop the baby's lungs.

"They said she wouldn't cry, but she did," says Gemma. "We were delighted. She was our little girl." 

the doctors warned Gemma and her husband Angus, 41, that little Janaya may not survive, as she suffered a range of potentially fatal ailments.

but she defied the odds and, following a series of operations and a slight weight increase, her parents are hoping to take her home any day now. 

"It seems impossible when you think what she has been through," says Gemma. "We didn't know there was a third baby determined to live."

Story: Stewart MacLean

*****************************

I always wonder what happens in stories like these, I wish they did more follow up articles !! 