The Australian cannot recall the moment she became a mother. She and her children were extremely fortunate to survive one of pregnancy’s most unusual consequences. Leonie Fitzgerald and her husband Peter had tried unsuccessfully to become kids for six years until receiving excellent news in January 2020: Leonie was pregnant with triplets following the third round of IVF treatment. There was no end to the couple’s delight. “We hoped for at least one, we knew that twins were possible, but we didn’t even think that we would get triplets,” Leonie told me.

The expecting woman attempted to eliminate stress-inducing factors from her life. She resigned her work and launched her own business, starting sleeping more, walked for at least 30 minutes per day, and told herself that everything would be fine. However, the “easy” pregnancy did not turn out. At the age of seven weeks, the woman had severe toxicosis. The attending physician demanded that Leonie spend the entire period in bed, citing the age risk (Leonie was nearly 45 at the time), many pregnancies, and four miscarriages in the anamnesis.

The Australian woman was hospitalized a few weeks before her planned cesarean section due to intense pain behind her ribs. The woman was released, but only a day later she returned to the emergency room. Leonie started having convulsions in the ward. She was hurried to the operation room, where triplets Liliana, Isabella, and Charlotte were delivered. The mother did not witness the birth of her daughters; she was given general anesthesia and subsequently placed in an artificial coma since the convulsions would not stop. The girls were also in trouble: due to their mother’s condition, they suffered oxygen deprivation in the womb and did not gain enough weight.

The Australian cannot recall the moment she became a mother. She and her children were extremely fortunate to survive one of pregnancy’s most unusual consequences. Leonie Fitzgerald and her husband Peter had tried unsuccessfully to become kids for six years until receiving excellent news in January 2020: Leonie was pregnant with triplets following the third round of IVF treatment. There was no end to the couple’s delight. “We hoped for at least one, we knew that twins were possible, but we didn’t even think that we would get triplets,” Leonie told me.

The expecting woman attempted to eliminate stress-inducing factors from her life. She resigned her work and launched her own business, starting sleeping more, walked for at least 30 minutes per day, and told herself that everything would be fine. However, the “easy” pregnancy did not turn out. At the age of seven weeks, the woman had severe toxicosis. The attending physician demanded that Leonie spend the entire period in bed, citing the age risk (Leonie was nearly 45 at the time), many pregnancies, and four miscarriages in the anamnesis.

The Australian woman was hospitalized a few weeks before her planned cesarean section due to intense pain behind her ribs. The woman was released, but only a day later she returned to the emergency room. Leonie started having convulsions in the ward. She was hurried to the operation room, where triplets Liliana, Isabella, and Charlotte were delivered. The mother did not witness the birth of her daughters; she was given general anesthesia and subsequently placed in an artificial coma since the convulsions would not stop. The girls were also in trouble: due to their mother’s condition, they suffered oxygen deprivation in the womb and did not gain enough weight.

Leonie was diagnosed with preeclampsia, an uncommon and deadly pregnancy condition that can cause hypertension, proteinuria, edema, and, in the worst-case scenario, multiple organ failure.

Leonie awoke barely two days later and instantly begged to see the children. The sisters survived, although they spent 34 days in neonatal critical care, “growing up” to normal weight and development.Now, the triplets are two years old. They are well, and nothing reminds them of the dark days when they and their mother were on the point of death. Both Leonie and Peter have altered their employment objectives in order to spend as much time with the daughters as possible. They started a blog to discuss their kids’ lives and successes, as well as their tough journey to parenting.