by Iyobosa Omoregie

After getting married in 1996, 44-year-old Clara Dominique, who had gone without an issue for 18 years, was delivered of quadruplets on Saturday, 22 November in Benin, Edo State.

The quadruplets, three girls and a boy, were delivered at the Graceland Medical Centre.

Clara was beyond ecstatic as she talked to reporters, saying that it was the grace of God that kept her and her husband together despite not having a child. The overjoyed mother would also reveal that her husband and herself refused to keep friends because of their childlessness.

She said: “I am happy that my husband and I were able to stay together till this day to witness the blessings of the Lord. My husband has been encouraging me that God would do it for us. My husband never contemplated driving me away.”

“I was happy when the scan showed it was four. Sometimes I thought of how I would carry the four of them. I have not seen somebody else who was delivered of four babies. It was not easy for me to carry the pregnancy. At a time, the weight was much for me.”

“I was the one dedicating children at our church every last Sunday of the month. I was the first to visit anybody that gave birth so that I could give them what I had. I am not the envious type.”

“My husband’s cousins tried to take up the matter but he silenced them. My parents were also there to encourage us. That was what kept us together because the family pressure was not there. They knew we were Christians and nobody could between my husband and me.”

Oni Samson, a doctor at the Graceland Medical Centre, disclosed that the quadruplets were delivered through a Caesarean section.

She said: “You don’t expect a woman that is having multiple births to do that through the normal birth. This is the first time we had a set of quadruplets in this hospital. They are okay. The ante-natal was okay. They (babies) are still under care to be stabilised.”

Kolapo Olapoju