Thursday 18 / April / 2024
Muscat: An Omani woman recently gave birth to triplets at the Khoula Hospital in Muscat after undergoing an IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) treatment in Jordan in September last year.
At first, it was hard for Ruqaiya Al Alawi, 26, to believe that she would be having triplets. When told about it first, she was left speechless.
“I didn’t know of the triplets until the third month of my pregnancy because they didn’t show up during scanning and when I learnt of it, I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I had to stay in the hospital for a month.”
Ruqaiya works for the Suhail Bahwan group, where her husband also works, and only took a week off before she delivered the triplets. The babies are almost two months now. “Although I only took maternity leave a week before my delivery, I must say that my colleagues were very helpful. Sometimes, I used to just go to work and sleep in the prayer room. I went to work because I needed the salary.”
These are her first children and although Ruqaiya wants more, she says she will wait a little.
Although Ruqaiya’s delivery was due on July 1, she had to undergo a C-section on May 22 after experiencing labour pains. “The day I had labour pains, I totally ignored it but after the pain remained constant, I went to the hospital where they operated on me.”
As they were born early, all the three siblings – Jude, Adam and Jana –had to be admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) until they gained some more weight. Jude and Jana are girls and Adam is a boy.
“Jude was 1.8kg at birth while Adam was 1.7kg and Jana was 1.4kg. Both Jude and Adam were given to me within a week but Jana took 19 days.”
Although there was some panic when the siblings were first born, Ruqaiya now finds things easier despite being sleep deprived almost every day.
“In the beginning, it was panic but day by day, it is getting easy.”
Once she figured that she was going to be blessed with three babies instead of one, Ruqaiya started planning the triplets’ room. “I did all the planning and everything. The first thing I planned was their room with their own beds and cupboards and decorations.”
Although most of the items in the room are three in number to cater to the needs of the babies, they have to share a few things.
Everyone in Ruqaiya’s family asks her if they can raise one of her children but she does not brook any such suggestion.
“I love my babies and I want to raise them by myself. My relatives come home quite often to help and on weekends I go to my mother’s home so that she can take over and I can get to sleep a little. Otherwise, it’s just me and my husband who look after the babies in shifts.”
Ruqaiya’s main concern about the babies is their weight; she wants to make sure that they are maintaining a constant growth as far as their weight is concerned.
Milk formula
“Jude and Adam are okay with the milk formula they drink but Jana still hasn’t adjusted to one type. She has a sensitive stomach and I keep changing her milk.”
She recalls her pregnancy as a difficult period but worth the pain. “It was very hard, and I never settled down in my place. Initially, I was with my mother for three months and then my mother-in-law as I was advised bed rest and couldn’t cook or drive. I used to just go to office and come back.”
Ruqaiya will be heading back to work mid-August. Her daily routine is to wake up early in the morning, give the children a bath and feed them. She grabs her breakfast in a few minutes before they sleep again.
“They wake up almost every two hours and I am lucky if they are all sleeping at the same time. In the time that I get when they are asleep, I take a shower, clean the house, and make lunch. It’s like a full time job without a salary.”
IVF is not a rare phenomenon. In the past, it was reported that an Omani couple had gone to India and were able to have babies after undergoing the IVF treatment.
