In April, a Virginia mother of an 8-year-old son and six-year-old twin sons doubled the size of her brood from three… to six! On April 12th, Monique Davual’s family welcomed triplets, son Jihad and daughters Mielle and Noelle, to the world by Cesarean section at 33 weeks gestation.
Monique said She previously told Good Morning America that raising her twins was “easy”. He quipped, “So maybe God said, ‘You keep saying it’s easy. I have something for you. Let’s see what you can do with three.’”
The severe morning sickness that Monique experienced with six-year-old twins Nasir and Sincere tipped her off to the possibility that she might be expecting again. He commented on GMA, “It hurts so much, that’s why I said, ‘It’s either a girl, or I’m pregnant with multiples. [again].’”
Ironically, a co-worker jokingly warned Monique that she might be expecting triplets this time. That co-worker was the first call Monique made after finding out that she was indeed expecting three babies. What else, Monique? told PEOPLEafter the doctor’s appointment when she found out she was having triplets, she called the venue she booked for the 30th birthday bash and just scheduled a gender reveal party.
She worked until she was four months pregnant and then underwent prenatal checkups every one week to monitor the health of the babies as well as her own. Fortunately, despite being born seven weeks early, all three were relatively healthy at birth and even came home from the NICU a few weeks before their original due date.
Monique’s pregnancy history is particularly unusual because all of her children were conceived naturally. Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia, the hospital where Monique gave birth, told a statement, “This phenomenon is so rare that it is difficult to find statistics on the occurrence.” According to a local news articlein 2011 a math professor at Georgia Tech crunched the numbers and estimated the odds of a singleton birth followed by twins followed by triplets to be about 1 in 264,000.
Additionally, Monique’s babies are the first triplets born at Riverside Regional Medical Center since 2018. The hospital released a statement saying, “We are so proud to have been a part of this special moment for this family. Moments like these are truly a reminder of why we love being nurses. It’s been five years since we saw the triplets. It is an honor to be able to provide care and support to families during the most important times of their lives.”
