News
Featured Image

PERTH, Australia, September 29, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – An Australian mother who chose to deliver triplets at 28 weeks rather than let her unborn baby daughter die in utero has all three infants home and healthy – and before their due date of September 22, reports Daily Mail Australia.

Doctors told Chloe Dunstan, who was naturally pregnant with triplets, halfway through her pregnancy that her daughter was being deprived of nutrients as the pregnancy progressed and would die in the womb.

The baby's only chance to survive was if her mother Chloe delivered the triplets at 28 weeks' gestation, which would put all three in jeopardy.

But 22-year-old Chloe and her 26-year-old husband Rohan decided to risk all for the sake of their daughter.

“I feel guilty for having the boys delivered when they were growing so well in the womb,” Dunstan told the Mail. “But Pearl would have died if we didn't deliver early, so I will never regret that.”

When the triplets were born July 3, Henry weighed 3.02 pounds, Rufus 2.64, and Pearl a minute 1.52 pounds.

Sign the petition to defund Planned Parenthood here!

All three had complications, and Dunstan's premature sons required blood transfusions, but Pearl had myriad problems, related Dunstan. These included a “PDA in her heart that closed on its own,” a pulmonary hemorrhage, a “minor brain bleed,” a “horrible infection,” metabolic bone disease, and liver problems that left Pearl jaundiced “the whole time she was in hospital.”

“[T]here were days we weren't sure if she would make it, especially the early weeks when she was on a ventilator,” Dunstan told the Mail.

But while Pearl was in the hospital two weeks longer than her brothers, who were discharged September 4, she was judged healthy enough to go home on September 18, and the latest scan of her liver “showed that everything looked fine.”

The birth of the triplets doubled the number of Dunstan children, as the young couple are also parents of Evan, aged three; Otto, aged two; and Felix, aged one.

“At this point I can't say exactly what the future holds, but all three babies are strong and healthy with no known issues,” said the mother of six, whose husband has taken time off work to help out at home, and whose story, according to the Mail, has captivated Australia.

All three babies have appointments in the next months, she added, and Pearl remains on medication – “mostly just extra vitamins.”

“I do remember briefly considering the alternative of letting her go so her brothers could continue to grow strong and healthy and have the best start in life,” Dunstan told the Mail. “But now that she's here, my heart hurts at the thought of not having her in our lives.”