Watch above: They made headlines at birth. Now, Wendy Winiewski checks in to see how Saskatchewan’s natural identical triplets and parents are doing following their first birthday.
PRUD’HOMME, Sask. – Identical triplets born in Saskatoon and who captured the hearts of people across the province and country, are celebrating their first birthday.
“I don’t think anybody ever knows what to expect when they have triplets,”said their mom, Teri-Lynn Pocha, with a laugh.
The naturally conceived, identical triplets turned one on March 10. Dad, Andrew, originally thought they’d need to paint their toenails different colours to tell them apart but says it never came to that.
“We knew within two weeks what we needed to change. We had this master plan when we brought them home and that went out the window,” said Andrew.
READ MORE: Rare identical triplets born at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital
The parents describe Aubrey, the oldest, as shy and loving. She loves to eat and is the biggest of the three, weighing three pounds more than the middle child, Madeline. Madeline is considered the trouble maker who’s very rambunctious and likes to steal toys. Sophie, the youngest, has a gentle temperament but is easily upset when Madeline steals her toys.
The triplets were born underweight and spent their first few weeks in the neo-natal intensive care unit at Royal University Hospital (RUH). Records dating back 20 years at RUH show this family as the first naturally conceived triplets in that timeframe.
Multiples can be common for couples who are using fertility treatments, which sometimes cause women to ovulate several eggs. Teri-Lynn and Andrew weren’t on any treatment when they conceived – meaning their girls were derived from the splitting of a single egg.
The couple has come a long way from the initial shock of learning they were pregnant with multiples, to giving birth to them, to celebrating their first birthday.
“We were so scared.”
“I remember we were cuddling and just thinking, ‘how are we going to do this? This is crazy’,” said Andrew, remembering back to their last night in hospital which staff used as a trial run, allowing the parents to fend for themselves that night, alone with their three new babies.
And Andrew was right. A day in the life is crazy they say, and it is chaos, and often another set of hands would be helpful.
“You can carry two up the stairs, you can’t carry three,” says Teri-Lynn who said nap time during the day when Andrew is at work can be difficult.
When the girls get fussy, she quickly makes the bottles, picks up the two who are most grumpy, hauls them upstairs then runs back downstairs to grab the last girl and the three bottles.
“We look at people with twins and we say wow, that must be nice,” said Andrew.
But having triplets has its perks too.
“They make each other giggle. They play peek-a-boo around the island with each other,” said Teri-Lynn.
“You don’t have to do anything. You can just stand back and watch.”
The Pocha’s have moved from Saskatoon to the small town of Prud’homme where they purchased a larger house with a fenced yard for the girls to play. Date nights have been replaced with grocery trips for diapers and whole milk. The girls consume two litres per day.
Teri-Lynn says feeding is much easier now than it was at first when she was pumping breast milk. Andrew would often wake during the night and find the exhausted new mom asleep on the couch with the pump.
As certain elements of daily life get easier, others get harder. The triplets are fairly mobile, crawling and scooting around from toy to toy but they aren’t walking yet.
“We find new things to hide every day,” said Teri-Lynn.
The trio has a nine-year-old brother and seven-year-old sister and just became big cousins. Andrew’s brother recently had twin girls.
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