We know we're lucky to have our four miracles - but we'll never forget the two we lost

By HELEN WEATHERS

Little miracles: Vicky and Andy with their four surviving sextuplets, from left, Ellen, Eric, Layla and Rose


Sextuplets mother Vicky Lamb shares the joy - and anguish - of a tumultuous first year...

At the stroke of midnight, Vicky and Andy Lamb saw in the New Year with four bottles — not champagne, but the small plastic variety topped up with infant formula for their quartet of young babies.

Every evening the Lambs set the alarm for midnight to wake them from their bleary-eyed slumber — usually on the sofa in the living room — to give seven-and-a-half month old Layla, Eric, Ellen and Rose their ‘dream feed’, and New Year’s Eve was no exception.


Fab four: The Lamb babies when they were a few days old...


It takes a full hour to feed all four infants before these proud, but exhausted, parents can finally climb the stairs and collapse into bed before the whole feeding, burping, changing, cuddling, playing, napping and washing routine starts afresh — and Vicky and Andy wouldn’t have it any other way.


.. and happy and healthy a year on


‘When we look at them all sleeping peacefully, sometimes we just can’t believe they are finally here, home with us,’ says Vicky, 32, a former ­nursery manager from Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

‘For us, 2010 was such an emotional, life-changing, traumatic year. So what we are hoping for in 2011 is health and happiness for our children.’


Precious delivery: Vicky with newborn Ellen, at one time it was feared none of the sextuplets would survive


‘There were tears of sadness for Matthew and Pippa, tears because I felt so tired and disappointed that Christmas wasn’t how I’d hoped, but also tears of happiness and thanks that we still have Layla, Eric, Ellen and Rose.

‘But when they smile, all the pain and heartbreak has been worth it. Sometimes I just can’t believe that these four lovely babies are really ours.’


source: dailymail