Although giving birth to healthy triplet boys brought her great joy, 26-year-old unemployed mother, Christine Crystol Hope, is nevertheless worried at the many responsibilities which have now been imposed on her.
She has to provide, firstly, for the new additions to her family, and secondly, a 19-month-old daughter, a differently-abled brother and herself.
Hope who resides in Kwakwani, Region 10, gave birth to three baby boys, Akeem, Akeen and Akeno on February 28th at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Relating her experience to Stabroek News, Christine intimated that she was overjoyed when she learnt that she was becoming a mother again. But when she discovered, at 4 months, that she would be having triplets, the economic reality hit home.
“…At first I was really happy about it but then I started to think like ‘how I’ll manage with three babies plus my daughter who is only one’, plus I have a brother.” Christine’s assurance comes in the form of her ex-mother-in-law, with whom she still lives with, “she usually help me out a lot with almost everything, so I figured that I would’ve gotten the help and support I need from her.”
Christine was not in the least surprised at the news that she was having triplets and has attributed that phenomenon to the family’s genes: her sister’s first set of children are twins and the father of the new triplets also had twins in a previous relationship. Christine says that she is fortunate to have endured only minimal pain relating to her pregnancy. Her only difficulty, she says, was being away from her daughter amidst transferals from one hospital to the next.
“My pregnancy was very hard because being in the hospital and being away from my daughter, it was very hard for me. I didn’t really use to get any sort of pain, it was only like the last two weeks of my pregnancy that I start getting the pain, the swelling of my foot, the belly pain and stuff like that”, she said.
She was in full praise for the doctors and nurses at the Kwakwani, Linden and Georgetown Public Hospi-tals, and all who managed and cared for her during her hospitalization at those institutions. “Well first I got admitted at the Kwakwani Hospital and my treatment there was very nice because the nurses and the doctors there, they know me so I didn’t really had any problem there. From there, I got transferred to Linden Hospital and when I got transferred there, at first it was very hard because I didn’t know anyone there but I got accustomed and the nurses and doctors also treated me very well there, I cannot complain. I then get transfer again to Georgetown for further management…the treatment here was very nice too.”
At the conclusion of her short interview, Christine shared with Stabroek News a promise and a vow she recently made to herself, to start on her journey to improve her children’s quality of life, a journey she hopes will give her children a life experience different to that of her own life story. Anyone willing to help and contribute to the betterment of Hope, her children and her brother’s lives can contact her on telephone number 699-5392.
