大象传媒

Paul met Isabel at work. He had his dream job as a business consultant for Ordnance Survey; Isabel worked in the IT department.

Isabel and Paul on their wedding day.

“We happened to be sitting opposite each other and we just started chatting,” Paul recounts. “It was just a lovely friendship that developed into more.” As well as matching him in the height department (she was 6 foot tall), “she was very interesting, she was very friendly, she was chatty,” says the scientist.

Within weeks of their first date, they were effectively living together. A year later they got engaged. Isabel was “very stereotypically German,” says Paul: “We were very efficient and effective at moving the relationship on!” Soon the pair were married and trying for a family.

But they hit a bump in the road.

“We weren’t successful,” says Paul. “I was sure that it wasn’t me, but it turns out it was.” Tests revealed that Paul had Klinefelter Syndrome, which affects one in 500 men. An extra X chromosome meant that he was XXY rather than XY. “I’m physically a man but I have stereotypically feminine emotional qualities,” Paul explains. Another key symptom for those with the syndrome is infertility: “We can’t have kids.”

“I remember laughing when they told me that there were three”

“Keen just to get on” the pair decided to use a sperm donor. The fertility clinic stimulated Isabel’s ovaries to overproduce eggs, so there was a better chance of conceiving with insemination. “However, it was much more successful, as it turned out, than we hoped for,” says Paul. A scan revealed that Isabel was expecting triplets. “I remember laughing when they told me that there were three – but in Germany three is a lucky number.”

The pregnancy went smoothly. “But we didn’t really plan for the birth,” Paul admits. “We kind of felt that would jinx it.” By the time the doctors performed a c-section at 34 weeks, “Isabel was enormous”, having to pull herself up from a beanbag using a rope.

When the babies arrived, tiny but well, the couple were “elated” says Paul. “It was just an amazing feeling.” They named the triplets Sarah, Lukas and Mattias. “I always talk of them in that order because that’s the order in which they were fed, initially,” says their dad. “SLM for short.”

“Towards the end of the following week, she was still needing a wheelchair to go down to the special baby unit,” Paul explains. They made the decision to give her a transfusion, “to give her a little extra pep to help get better.” She had a terrible fear of needles, but they hoped a canula in the back of her hand would help.

That day, Paul’s brother was there, delivering some baby items. They agreed that Isabel would go and prepare for the blood, and Paul would go to the car park – but be back in time for the transfusion.

“I held her hand until she was not warm”

When he returned to the ward, there was a lot of commotion; he couldn’t get to Isabel. “I can remember seeing the bed from a distance but I couldn’t see her face; I couldn’t see who it was.” After an hour of waiting, he went home. And then the hospital called. When he returned, they told him what had happened.

Because of the pregnancy, her heart was under a great deal of strain. On top of that, Paul believes that her fear of needles resulted in a panic attack. But Isabel also had an underlying condition that at this point nobody knew about, called Marfan Syndrome. “Her heart basically ripped apart, and she died.”

In shock, Paul asked to see her. “She was swaddled up so I couldn’t really see much of her, but she was still warm, and basically I held her hand until she was not warm.”

“I remember my last words to Isabel were ones of great love and happiness,” recalls Paul. “It was like the perfect goodbye in a sense because we said how much we loved each other. To be honest, she ushered me out!”

It was only after the inquest that they learned the cause of death and about Isabel’s Marfan. The condition affects muscles, including the heart. “It’s a genetic condition,” explains Paul. “The boys have it, but Sarah doesn’t.”

What happened to Isabel has probably enabled her sons to have a longer life, he says: now they know they have it, they can manage it. Isabel’s sister subsequently learnt that she’s a sufferer too. “So, there has been this opportunity for her relatives to – not quite prosper – but to be benefitted from learning about this condition that they all have.”

“I knew what Isabel would have wanted me to do – focus on the kids; and so that’s what I did,” states Paul. “I went every evening. I fed them all, I bathed them.” There’s a photo of all three of them on his lap, which he treasures.

His parents came to help. “It was then that we realised the magnitude of what we were facing,” he admits. But an amazing health visitor contacted Twins Trust, the national body for multiple births in the UK, and they ran an internet campaign that raised £10,000. Nannies would come and stay in a hotel, paid for by the funds, and his father would taxi them to and fro. Volunteers from local churches visited and Night Nannies sent help overnight. “It was full on,” he recalls. There were days where the babies would all fall asleep at different times, so Paul wouldn’t get a moment of rest.

But everyone rallying around gave him the confidence that he could do it. “I felt inspired by watching them,” he says. It was “just the amazing kindness of strangers” that got him through.

Ordnance Survey gave him 12 months paid paternity leave. “It made a huge difference that I could stay at home for the whole year.”

A career change

When the kids were six, Paul decided it was time for a career change. “I couldn’t be a good parent and a good employee at the same time – it just wasn’t working. And so, I decided to be a good parent.” He gave up his job as a business consultant and became a teaching assistant.

“Work in a school has been so eye-opening and has enhanced my parenting skills no end,” says the father. “I really like that I can use my brain… to help children with specific needs or additional needs, on their learning journeys. And I feel I’ve learned a lot.”

“I’m a much better parent, having been exposed to teachers and seeing how they develop a relationship with the children,” he says. “They are completely focused on making sure the children are successful.”

“Keeping three babies alive is kind of an achievement,” Paul states, proudly. Twelve years on, his “immense love” for Isabel continues, pushing him forward. “I want the kids’ experience of life to not be diminished by the fact they don’t have a mother.”

They talk about her often. They light the same candle each year on her birthday. The kids have photos of her in their bedrooms. There’s a video of Isabel and Paul talking, the night before the births, posted online so the triplets can always watch it, wherever they are in the world. “I also talk about there being a sperm donor,” says Paul. Their conversations are honest and open. “A lot of what we talk about is making the best use of time and having family time,” he says. “That’s a very important part.”

Sarah, Lukas and Mattias are clearly full of love for the father who has raised them with such passion and determination. They agree that he’s a great dad, and though he can be a “bit overprotective” he’s “definitely not the strictest!” “He’s a chilled dad,” says Sarah, affectionately.

Their crossover with Isabel was just nine days, but Paul can see their mum in all of them: “Mattias especially – he looks at me in a certain way and it’s Isabel’s look.” A little mannerism he does with his fingers mirrors hers.

“It’s just amazing how she had a sort of serene determination about her and I think they all have that,” Paul says, proudly.

“I think they’ll all do OK in life.”

All images courtesy Paul Mason ©