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Premature Triplets' Amazing Story of Survival

CBN

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Imagine a baby so small she can fit in the palm of your hand.

Teeny, tiny Pearl Dunstan, one of three triplets, weighed only one-and-a-half pounds when she was born three months early in Australia. Her two brothers, Henry and Rufus, born alongside Pearl, weighed only about three pounds each.

Theirs is an amazing story of survival.

When their mother, Chloe Dunstan, was seven months pregnant with the triplets, doctors told her and her husband, Rohan, that the life of one of their triplets, Pearl, was in danger. She wasn't getting the oxygen and nutrients she needed in utero.

Doctors told Chloe and Rohan if they waited another three months until the babies came on their own, little Pearl probably wouldn't make it that long.

They explained the only way the baby girl had a chance at life is if all three babies were born very soon: three months early. That way they could give her the treatment she needed.

But even that was no guarantee. There was a chance none of the babies, especially the tiny girl, would survive being born that premature.

Confronted with an agonizing choice, Chloe and Rohan chose to try to save all three.

"I feel guilty for having the boys delivered when they were growing so well in the womb," Chloe explained, according to LifeNews.com. "But Pearl would have died if we didn't deliver early, so I will never regret that."

"I do remember briefly considering the alternative of letting her go so her brothers could continue to grow strong and healthy and have the best start in life," she recalled. "But now that she's here, my heart hurts at the thought of not having her in our lives."

The triplets were born July 3, 2015. It was touch-and-go at first, mostly for little Pearl.

"Pearl had a PDA (hole) in her heart that closed on it's own," Chloe explained. "She had a pulmonary hemorrhage, a minor brain bleed. She fought a horrible infection and there were days we weren't sure if she would make it, especially the early weeks when she was on a ventilator."

"She had something called metabolic bone disease, which resolved with medication," she continued. "The main ongoing issue was her liver, as she was very jaundice for the whole time she was in hospital. But the latest scan showed that everything looked fine."

The triplets stayed in the hospital for nearly three months. When they finally went home they were strong and healthy.

Now, a year later, a picture on their mom's Facebook page shows the triplets looking happy alongside their three older brothers, who are all one year apart in age.

If you're doing the math, that makes six children all under age five. All but one are boys. What a family!

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