Edinburgh parents 'amazed' at welcoming quadruplets in first for Royal Infirmary

An Edinburgh couple have spoken of their shock after welcoming quadruplets.

The brothers Rory, Harrison, Ben and Noah were delivered at the Royal Infirmary - a first for the hospital. They each weighed around 2.9lbs with parents John and Arlene Mitchell "ecstatic", reports the Scottish Daily Express.

Naturally conceived quadruplets are so rare that they only occur in around one in 700,000 births. Speaking to STV News, mum Arlene said: "I'm still in a wee bit of shock because there is four.

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"But it will be good to get them home. I was in survival mode, scared if anything happened to them.

"I was a wee bit shocked. it will be good to get them home. Dr Cowan was absolutely fantastic through the whole thing. It made it so much better.”

John added: “Ecstatic, aye, it’s quite hard to describe to be honest, it’s amazing. It really is amazing. Shocked, still, but yeah, it’s mad. I just can’t wait to get them home and all just be a nice wee family, or big family.”

The couple had gone for an early pregnancy scan when they were told they were going to have not just one baby, but four. John said: “It was hard to describe, the shock and the adrenaline. It took 48 hours to get my head around it. I was thinking, ‘is this real? Have they made a mistake?’

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“Nobody believed it at first – they were like ‘you’re at it,’ but when they realised, they were so happy for us and couldn’t wait to meet them.”

The boys were born by C-section on May 14 with a team of 20 staff.

Charge nurse Naomi South said the delivery went “smoothly”, due in part to months of forward planning. She said: “It was a big operation and each quad had four members of the team assigned to them. There were three consultants overseeing the whole delivery process.

“We also had to have a list of who would be on call to come in, as normal staff wouldn’t have covered the care required for quads.

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“Everyone in the team just did such an excellent job. Mum was absolutely amazing. She was very calm and seemed to take everything in her stride, considering she’s now got four little boys."

The couple are now eagerly waiting to get the boys home to join proud big sister Lauren and older brother, Hunter.