After being married for 11 years, suffering through numerous years of infertility treatments, my husband and I decided that we were either going to remain childless, or look into alternatives. We were keen on adoption, but locally our age counted against us, and the other alternative of international adoption we feared was too high a risk, and was completely out of our price range.

On returning from holiday, I started to feel awful, and put it down to getting back to work and maybe a "tummy" bug.

My menstrual cycle was never regular, and therefore after missing one, I never thought I was pregnant. After weeks of feeling terrible, my husband convinced me to go to our local GP and just make sure everything was ok. My GP could find nothing wrong, and asked if I objected to a pregnancy test whereby I packed out laughing. I took the test, and it came out positive. My GP insisted that I went for a blood test. It was the longest 24 hours in my life, and to top it all, I never discussed the possibility of being pregnant with my husband.

When the GP called and told me it was a definite positive, with a chance of multiples, I told him he had the wrong patient. I went for a second test, which turned out positive as well.

I still waited before telling my husband, and at the 8 week mark decided that it was time to tell him he was going to be a dad. He immediately booked the Gynae appointment, and we went two days later.

Our world came to a stand still after that appointment, we were told that the gynae could hear 4 distinctive heart beats, and that we would need to decide whether or not we were going to abort a minimum of 2 of the fetuses. It was a heart breaking decision to make. We were told that if we did not abort, we would more than likely loose all four.

Because of our religious beliefs we decided against aborting any, and as clichéd as it sounds, we made up our minds that Gods will, will be done. We had to go to the gynae every week, and on our 3rd visit, he told us that he could only pick up 3 heart beats. Our religious beliefs, our own beliefs, our thoughts and concerns all came flooding back to us instantly. We started to doubt the decision that we had made.

Because we live in a small town, where there is only 1 Gynae, we moved to JHB for 12 months, so that the rest of the pregnancy would be under the control of a gynae who specialized in multiple births. It was the second hardest decision we made, as my husband would still work, and would only be able to travel to JHB every few weekends, but for the sake of the remaining three babies, we did not want to take further risks.

We soon found out that they were boys and that there was a 99% chance that they were identical. Petrified was an understatement at the time.

After a pregnancy, although not too difficult, filled with heartache decision, our boys arrived healthily on the 20 September 2005. (Although technically speaking one was born on 21 September). Even at 6 weeks prem, we were able to take them home shortly afterwards. They are our lives now (in more ways than one trust me). Based on calculations, I spend on average 4 hours changing nappies, 3 hours bathing them (Which I have given up on), 10 hours feeding them, another 2 hours trying to get them to sleep, 2 hours preparing their meals and doing their washing, and 3 hours playing with them, it gives a whole new meaning, a 24 hour job. I have the most amazing support system and would not change them for the world, because to us they are the world