WATCH: Fourth baby came as surprise
Just when doctors thought they had finished delivering Bulelwa Kanana’s triplets, they saw another tiny hand waving at them.
Kanana, 31, who delivered her four babies through a cesarean section said: “The doctor told me he got the surprise of his life. We never saw her on any of the scans.
“We knew there were three but we then discovered there was a fourth one in there.” she said.
Doctors were just about to suture the uterine incision when they saw the little hand.
The mother from Somerset East said she had never expected to become an instant mom of four.
“All the scans showed that we were having triplets. We were all surprised.”
The girls, Lunomandla, Lumnandi, Lunothando and Lujulile, were born on August 19 at 31 weeks.
Two of them weighed 1.2kg and the other two 1.7kg and 1.5kg.
Nurses said yesterday the four had quickly earned a reputation as the sweetest babies ever in the neonatal intensive care unit – as they were big sleepers and did not really cry.
They are expected to go home next week.
“We are hoping she will get a lot of family support,” social worker Pamela Rubushe said.
But while they won over the nurses, their mom said the biggest challenge would be with their three-year-old sister. “When I told their sister about the babies she was not impressed,” Kanana said.
Staff at the hospital’s busy nursery had their hands fuller than usual over the past month as aside from the quadruplets two sets of triplets were also born.
[caption id="attachment_221501" align="aligncenter" width="597"] Moms Bulelwa Kanana, 31, from Somerset East, Zukiswa Tshebe, 32, from Kwazakhele and Dombekhaya Mabele, 38, from Paterson show off nine of the 10 babies born between them in the past month at Dora Nginza Hospital. Kanana had quadruplets, all girls, Tshebe triplet girls and Mabele had two boys and a girl
Picture: Eugene Coetzee[/caption]
Zukiswa Tshebe, 32, from Kwazakhele gave birth to her triplets, three girls, on August 8.
“Their dad and I were very stressed when we found out that we were expecting triplets as neither of us has a job,” she said.
She said she had two other children.
Tshebe named her three new girls Enzokuhle, Llelokuhle and Phelokuhle.
The babies weighed 1.1kg, 1.2kg and 1.2kg at birth but their mom said they were strong and getting ready to go home soon.
Dombekhaya Mabele, 38, from Paterson gave birth to triplets, a girl and two boys, on Monday.
She has not named the three yet. They were born weighing 2.3kg, 1.4kg and 1.8kg.
One of her boys is still on oxygen, but the other two are doing fine.
Mabele did not have scans before her delivery so the arrival of the triplets had been both a shock and a surprise she said.
“I have three other children. Now I have six,” she said.
