Last month, Mrs Nuala Conway, from Dunamore, gave birth to four girls and two boys 14 weeks prematurely. She told the Sunday Express newspaper that “These babies are a wonderful gift from God,” in her first interview.
 
Now the 26-year-old Co Tyrone woman said that 14 weeks into the multiple pregnancy, doctors warned her and husband Austin of the risks of proceeding. However, the couple said they immediately rejected any question of aborting their children — Ursula, Austin, Shannon, Karla, Eoghan and Kerrie — who are now 40 days old and all stable in intensive care in hospital.
 
The couple said that “Whatever God laid out for our lives we were taking it.”
 
The four girls and two boys — who were conceived without the aid of IVF — were delivered by a team of 38 people at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital in Belfast.
 
They all arrived within the space of five minutes, weighing in between 1lb 7oz and 2lb 2oz.
 
Mrs Conway told the paper she had prayed for a child with her husband of three years. Their children are the first sextuplets to be born in Ireland and the first in the UK for over a quarter of a century.
 
“II'm in love with every single one of them. I fell in love when they were in the womb. When one moved they would all move and I could definitely feel 24 limbs kicking,” Mrs Conway said.