"When the third baby arrived dad stopped calling the hospital"

The only triplets ever to have been born in the Westman Islands in Iceland celebrated their sixtieth birthday yesterday. Triplets were very rare at the time and their birth made local news.

The baby girls were born to couple Sigríður Sigurðardóttir and Kolbeinn Sigurjónsson at Hvolur farm in the Westman Islands. They already had one daughter, Kolbrún, who was almost two when the triplets were born.  

When Anna Ísfold, Mary Ólöf and Guðrún Fjóla were born the couple had to tend to four youngsters in diapers, and then proceeded to have three more children, daughters Ingibjórg Sigríður, Elva Sigurjóna and Kolbeinn Freyr born in 1957, 1963 and 1973. 

"When the midwife, called Anna, was checking for the baby's heartbeat once during a routine pregnancy check her face turned red. She then told mum that she heard two heartbeats," explains Mary. Her mother was sent to have an X-ray as sonar had not yet been invented. "They saw two foetuses in the X-ray and something a lot smaller behind them. They thought it was some sort of tumor or part of the placenta. It must have been our sister Anna  because she was smaller than Guðrún and myself at birth."

Marý explains that at the time, father's didn't attend the birth of their children. Their father Kolbeinn was therefore at home, and they had no telephone so he had to phone from a neighbour's house. "When he first called the hospital they told him, there is one baby and she's still in labour. Anna was born first and then I was born five minutes later. Then dad called the hospital aagin and they told him, there are two babies now but she's still in labour. Dad went back home. Twenty minutes later he asked to make another phonecall to see how mum was doing. That's when they told him: There are three babies and she's still in labour. When that third baby had arrived dad stopped calling!" 

It turned out that the placenta was so big that they thought it was a fourth baby coming. 

The triplets today /​Morg­un­blaðið/Ó​skar Pét­ur Friðriks­son/Á​rni Sæ­berg

Weighed the same as one baby

All girls were born smaller than the norm but were healthy and doing well. Anna was christened in honour of the midwife who delivered them. Marý explains that when they were children they always wore the same outfits. "Our clothes were usually homemade and then we got three identical outfits. Anna and I have dark hair and brown eyes but Guðrún is blonde and green-eyed like mum was." 

The sisters agree that they have very different personalities. Marý and Anna shared the same group of friends but Guðrún had different friends. Marý says that they seldom meet all three together these days but on their birthday they went to a spa together and then out for a meal in the Westman Islands.