Polish-British parents of seven welcomed five new babies just in time for Valentine’s Day, with the mother saying Tuesday that she felt “better than expected” after the rare pregnancy.
Dominika Clarke, already a mum to seven children ranging in age from 10 months to 12 years, gave birth to the quintuplets at a hospital in the southern Polish city of Krakow on Sunday.
“We were planning to have an eighth child but there turned out to be more,” she told reporters at the hospital alongside her British husband Vince.
The babies were delivered by caesarean section at 29 weeks and still require respiratory support.
“We hope that we can arrive at the joyful moment of discharging them from the hospital,” said Ryszard Lauterbach, head of the neonatology department.
The children, three girls and two boys, were named Arianna Daisy, Charles Patrick, Elizabeth May, Evangeline Rose and Henry James.
Clarke called her pregnancy a “miracle”, as the hospital said the odds of conceiving quintuplets were one in 52 million.
“As a mathematician, I like these kinds of statistics,” Clarke said.
“We had a greater chance of winning the lottery than having this crowd.”
