A couple who were told they could never have children now have five – after they had miracle quadruplets.
After years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, Selina Torbett, 32, and Kev Ashe, 39, used IVF to have their first child, Myla, but they only had two frozen eggs remaining, the couple were desperate to give her a sibling.
Now seven years old, Myla has her work cut out playing with identical triplet brothers and her little sister – the result of the two ‘last chance’ eggs, one of which split three ways.
Since Selina, a hospital ward sister, had never experienced menstruation and had polycystic ovaries and endometriosis, she had always worried about her ability to conceive.
Doctors warned her she was likely to experience early menopause and would never conceive naturally. Selina and Kev were advised by doctors to abort the quadruplets due to the high danger of miscarriage, early labor, and other difficulties, but they were determined to give their children the best opportunity possible.
Selina, from Winchester, Hants, said: “It is unbelievable. We had one little miracle – then we had four more.
“It is exhausting and totally insane but we wouldn’t change it for the world.
“We look at our family and feel filled with so much love.”
When Selina was barely 19 years old, she met decorator Kev in a neighborhood pub. Two years later, they began trying for a child after Selina’s doctor advised her to get started as soon as possible.
After three years of negative pregnancy tests and procedures such as ovarian drilling, where holes are made in the ovaries to help them release eggs, Selina was finally allowed to get IVF treatment on the NHS.
Selina explained: “We were trying all of those methods but nothing was working.
“It was a very hard time. We both wanted a family so much.
“We wanted to try IVF but at that time you had to be at least 31 to have it on the NHS.
“I remember that just as I was coming up 24, that changed, and our GP called to say they dropped the age to 24.
“IVF required three months. We weren’t particularly optimistic that it would succeed because everything else had failed. We went into our IVF procedure believing it wouldn’t work, but it was successful the first time.
“In October 2014, Myla was born. When she was a year old, we thought we wanted to try again.’
Just three frozen eggs remained, so the couple underwent two more years of infertility therapy while squandering their money for a mortgage on the pricey procedure.
Selina added: “The second attempt at IVF failed. We were shocked because we had such high expectations after our first try with Myla – I was very upset by it.
“We were so desperate to complete our family. It was a dark and horrible time.
“With the last two eggs, we decided this was our final chance, we wouldn’t try to do any more.”
When what would be Selina’s final pregnancy test revealed a positive result, the couple was overjoyed. However, Selina was bleeding heavily and was afraid she may miscarry, so she asked a coworker at the hospital where she worked to scan the baby at five weeks.
She said: “I hadn’t told Kev because I didn’t want to worry him.
“They told me there were four pregnancy sacs so potentially four babies and I was in utter disbelief.”
Two weeks later, Selina and Kev returned to the fertility clinic for the official scan and were stunned and overjoyed when the sonographer discovered four healthy heartbeats.
She added: “But we had quite a lot of negativity from the healthcare professionals and they wanted us to abort the identical triplets – which we didn’t know at that time were three boys.
“They thought they probably wouldn’t all survive, but we thought we would let fate take it’s course.
“We knew the risks were great and it was very difficult, but we went ahead and accepted that.” We had already endured a great deal to complete our family. We trudged on in the hopes that we would be the ones to beat the odds.”
The pregnancy was tough but there were no major complications and I tried to do everything possible to keep them as safe as I could.
The quadruplets arrived 11 weeks early at 29 weeks gestation, being born on July 23, 2017.
Selina added: “One of the doctors joked with Kev that the odds were so slim, it is more likely he’d win the jackpot than have quads.
“To have them all at home together for the first time was very overwhelming.
“I’m very proud of them all every time I look at them. We succeeded in spite of everyone’s skepticism ” Our babies are evidence that miracles do happen, and I feel very lucky. I had always yearned for a large family but had come to terms with the fact that it wouldn’t be possible for me.”
