Through the years I spent at the little northern midwifes cottage in the mistshrouded hills of Northumberland, my hands have ushered roughly twelve thousand newborns into the world. Yet a handful of cases have pierced my memory like silver needles, and among them shines the only set of triplets I ever tended. Let me tell you that one.
It began with a young couple waiting for their first child. The father, Tom, had been posted to our remote village as an aircraft mechanic at the modest airstrip that served the area. They lived in a cramped flat above the village hall. The mother, Eleanor, was a brighteyed Londoner with a shock of flaming copper hair that seemed to catch the sunrise. Describing her as merely a woman felt like trying to name a storm.
Tom hailed from the green valleys of the Lake District. He was broadshouldered, calm, with a lazy, almost regal air. In those distant days of a quieter, postwar Britain, such a mix was oddly ordinary. Early on, a routine scan whispered that they would welcome twins.
Eleanor decided to travel to London for the birth, but the labour arrived ahead of scheduleat thirtytwo weeks. That very night, Poppy, a junior midwife, was shifted into our ward because the main building was being scrubbed for the next round of cleaning. We were temporarily set up in the gynecology wings open bays.
On duty was Dr. Diana Clarke, a seasoned obstetrician with a steady hand. As she examined Eleanor, she sensed something amiss with the babies positions. Natural delivery would have been perilous, so she ordered a Caesarean. An Xray was taken to confirm the layout.
The image revealed two tiny figures. One lay headfirst, the other feetfirst. Satisfied that the situation was as predictable as a clock, we moved to the operating theatre.
The first boy emerged, a fragile 1.7kg bundle. While the nurse tended to him, the team coaxed out the second boy, 1.6kg, from the womb. Just as we were catching our breath, a voice from behind sliced the air:
Prepare the third!
There was no time for jokes; the two boys were already weak as wilted leaves. I think I muttered something sharp to the crew, but a sudden, sharp cry made me whirl around. And thereoh, therea third child, a little girl, 1.4kg, was slipped into my hands. My mind staggered; she was nowhere to be seen on the scan. It turned out the two boys had nestled side by side along the length of the uterus, while the tiny sister lay across them, hidden from sighther little body shielding herself from prying eyes.
Only because Dr. Clarke insisted on the operation did the trio survive. We placed the newborns together on the sole incubator we owneda modest cot for preterms. All three fit, as if the universe had folded space for them.
I never left their side that night, my thoughts swirling like fog over the moors. By dawn, their vital signs steadied. The wards bell rang, and I found myself at the doorway where a handsome airman in flight suit entered, his eyes wide as sunrise.
Who was born to me? he asked, voice trembling.
Congratulations, I replied slowly, you have two sons and a daughter.
The news took him a long moment to sink in. He repeated to himself, halfwhispered, Two sons a daughter three children?
Yes exactly, I said, trying to make the words sound as solid as stone.
He slid down the wall, a slow, bewildered descent, and we seated him, offering a glass of water. The man was new to the village, barely earned a pound, living in a tiny cottage, and nowtriplets! The babies lingered in our care until they gained enough weight and health to leave.
I loved visiting their little room, marveling at the miracle that lay there. Though three, they were always clean, fed, and swaddled in soft blankets. Eleanor, with her perpetual smile, tended them with a diligence that seemed painted on her cheeks. It was the first set of triplets the hamlet had ever known, and the children were blessed beyond measure.
The council promptly gave the family a threebedroom council house in a new estate, complete with furnishings and a stipend. A dedicated health visitor was assigned for the first months, but the true hero was Eleanorher beauty, her strength, the way she lifted each infant into the world and nurtured them onward.
Ten years later, I found myself in the reception of the same hospital, the air thick with antiseptic and memory. Poppy entered, this time with her grown children, coming to see their father. Two darkhaired boys, mirrors of their dad, followed, and then, bounding ahead, a brightcopperhaired girlEleanors spittingimage, laughing and swift as a summer wind.
Seeing that family, my heart swelled as if the walls themselves were humming with their joy. I could still feel the faint heat of those tiny bodies and hear the soft thrum of their little hearts echoing in the corridors of my mind.
