{"id":559,"date":"2009-06-14T18:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-14T18:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/parents-of-sextuplets-turned-down-advice-to-abort-2.html"},"modified":"2009-06-14T18:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-14T18:06:00","slug":"parents-of-sextuplets-turned-down-advice-to-abort-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/parents-of-sextuplets-turned-down-advice-to-abort-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Parents of sextuplets turned down advice to abort"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Catholic couple in the UK gave birth to sextuplets last month — the first set in the UK in more than a quarter century — and, according to news reports<\/a>, they were told the best thing to do would be to abort some of the fetuses: <\/p>\n

<\/a>Nuala Conway, 26, and her husband Austin, from Dunmore in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, were warned about the high risks of carrying on with the multiple pregnancy.<\/p>\n

At 14 weeks, they were given the option of terminating some of the unborn babies.<\/p>\n

“They more or less advised us to,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They told us about the risks we faced if we went ahead with the pregnancy.”<\/p>\n

But the former fashion store sales supervisor, a devout Roman Catholic, insisted on putting her faith in God and pressing ahead despite the risks.<\/p>\n

“These babies are a wonderful gift from God. Whatever God laid out for our lives we were taking it,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ursula, Austin, Shannon, Karla, Eoghan and Kerrie, were born within just five minutes of each other in a Caesarean section delivery involving 30 medical staff at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.<\/p>\n

The six babies, who weighed between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz at birth, are all stable but remain in intensive care.<\/p>\n

Mr Conway, a kitchen fitter, who has suspended his job so that he can make the daily three-hour round trip to the hospital, said: “It has been like a roller coaster.<\/p>\n

“The babies have been on and off antibiotics and ventilators. They are thriving really well but it’s hard to get a good day. There are so many of them there are always days when one or two will not be doing so well.”<\/p>\n

The Conways, who were married in 2006, did not conceive the sextuplets \u2013 which occur in around one in 4.5 million pregnancies \u2013 through IVF.<\/p>\n

However, after three years of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant doctors diagnosed her with polycystic ovaries and she was given a mild fertility drug to stimulate ovulation in October last year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Visit the link for the rest. And you can read more right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Catholic couple in the UK gave birth to sextuplets last month — the first set in the UK in more than a quarter century — and, according to news reports, they were told the best thing to do would be to abort some of the fetuses: Nuala Conway, 26, and her husband Austin, from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\nParents of sextuplets turned down advice to abort - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/parents-of-sextuplets-turned-down-advice-to-abort-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parents of sextuplets turned down advice to abort - 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