It was the day of Sam's 18 week interview and she wanted to look perfect. She had been contacted by numerous magazines and newspapers for interviews about her octuplet pregnancy however she had refused because she had a deal with goodbye magazine and she was perfectly happy with the deal because she gained a minivan, a new home and £25,000.

George Murray and the photographer were due to arrive at Sam and Tom's flat at 10am to begin the photo shoot, followed by the interview so Sam had gotten up and gone for a shower at 7:30 so she could get ready on time. Tom had had a decent nights sleep, so he gradually opened his eyes and stretched, before he raised his head from his pillow to see his wife in light blue skinny jeans that were being held up by her bump band, along with a long sleeveless yellow top that clearly showed her bump and she was just sitting on the end of the bed, curling her hair in front of the mirror.

"You look beautiful." Tom smiled as he slowly sat up.
"You look like you've only just woken up." Sam stated and Tom smirked.
"What time is it?" He asked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"9 o'clock." Sam replied.
"Right, I'm just gonna go for a quick shower." He announced as he stood up.
"And a quick shave." Sam ordered.
"And a quick shave." Tom repeated.

"Is my hair alright?" Sam asked her husband who stood in a black and white checkered shirt and casual jeans.
"For the millionth time, you look absolutely amazing. Honestly." Tom stated and then there was a knock at the door. Tom walked to the door and straightened his shirt before he opened it to reveal a man with a notepad and voice recorder and a young woman with a camera and a large case.
"Hiya, George Murray and this is our photographer, Emily Dale." He stated as he shook Tom's hand.
"Nice to meet you both. Come in." Tom smiled as he held the door open and they both entered to find Sam in the living room.
"Morning." Sam said as she shook their hands too.
"Wow, you look amazing Mrs Kent." Emily smiled sweetly.
"Please, call me Sam."

"Are you two okay for us to get the photo shoot out of the way first?" He asked and Tom glanced at Sam because he knew it was her who was the most nervous.
"Yeah, sure." Sam replied.
"Okay, well we'd like quite a few pictures, because we've been given 6 pages for next weeks issue to focus on this amazing story of octuplets." George stated. "So, I'll pass you over to Emily."
"Well, the main picture that we are after, is one similar to this." She stated as she opened her case on the table and took out a picture of a heavily pregnant Myleene Klass wearing no clothes, but with one arm across her chest and one hand on use hip so that nothing inappropriate was seen, but the whole body was on camera.
"Right." Sam nodded.
"If you want to go and get undressed and come in in a towel or something, then we can set up in here okay?" She asked.
"Come on, I'll get your dressing gown for you." Tom said as he guided Sam into their bedroom and closed the door. "You sure you want to do this?" He asked quietly.
"Um, yeah. It'll be fine once we've started." Sam stated as she pulled her shirt over her head. Tom grabbed Sam's grey dressing gown whilst his wife took everything off, before he wrapped it around her. Thankfully, they had bought a maternity dressing gown the day before on their shopping trip so it fitted perfectly over her bump. Sam took a deep breath before she exited the bedroom where Emily had set up a tall white screen and the camera was on a stand.

"Um George do you want to come to the kitchen for a cup of tea?" Tom asked so that there would only be Sam and the woman in the room whilst she had to be naked.
"Yes please." George nodded, he was glad of the offer to save the awkwardness so both men went into the kitchen and closed the door behind them.

After the photo shoot, Emily went down to the van to upload the images, so Sam, Tom and George sat at the table, ready for the interview.
"Okay, I'm just going to ask you some questions and everything will be recorded on this." He stated as he switched on the voice recorder and placed it on the table. "First things first, are you employed, and if so, where?" He asked.
"We're both doctors in Holby ED. I'm a specialist in paediatric emergency medicine and Sam is a specialist in general emergency medicine." Tom stated.
"And is your boss supportive of the pregnancy?"
"Definitely." Sam replied. "Zoe Hanna is our clinical lead and she's been so considerate about my maternity leave. Both of our jobs are secure." Sam stated.
"Which brings me onto my next question, when are you going on maternity leave?" George asked.

"I'm going on maternity leave at 20 weeks, so in two weeks time. And then I'm going on bed rest and I'll be admitted in hospital at 24 weeks." Sam stated.
"And why have you made the decision to go on leave so early?" He asked.
"Because, with octuplets, the risk of premature labour is extremely high so I need take it easy and prevent any unneeded stress because the longer our babies stay inside me, the better chance they've got." Sam explained.
"Okay. You had your anomaly scan this week am I right?" He asked and Sam nodded. "Do you know the genders?"
"There's three boys and five girls." Sam stated proudly.
"And were any complications picked up from the scan?" He asked and Sam glanced at Tom to hint for him to answer.
"All of our babies are named Baby A to Baby H to identify them on the scans, and Baby C was diagnosed with Spina Bifida. It's where the vertebrae don't fuse properly and in Baby C's case, the spinal chord does remain intact, but he will need an operation to fix the problem." Tom stated. He knew better than to go into the details of possible paralysis because then the media would go crazy.
"I'm sorry to hear that. But the rest of the babies are in good health?"
"Yes, there's a small concern about the size of baby H but we're hoping she'll have a growth spurt before birth." Tom smiled.

"And the birth. That will be a c-section won't it?"
"Yes."
"And will you remain awake?"
"Unless there's a complication that requires sedation, I will only have an epidural yes." Sam stated.
"And what will happen after the babies are born?" George asked.

"There is a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, with eight beds in. All of our babies will go straight to the same unit which isn't far from maternity, and they will each have a doctor and a nurse allocated to their care, along with a consultant who will be in charge of all of the babies' care. Some of them will require intubation and a ventilator which will breath for them while their lungs mature, and hopefully , some of them won't need to be intubated but we can't say for certain until they're born." Tom explained.

"Okay, moving on. How did you find out you were pregnant?" George asked.
"Well, we wanted to try for a baby on our wedding night, and two weeks later I took the test. I came out and sat with Tom while we waited for the result and obviously, the result was positive." Sam smiled.
"So, this was a planned pregnancy?"
"Yes." Sam and Tom both stated.
"Okay, and we've heard rumours about how many calories you have to eat to keep your babies healthy. Care to enlighten us?"
"During my second trimester, I have to eat approximately 4400 calories a day, I have to drink around 3 litres of water a day and I get around 10 hours sleep each night." Sam stated. "But when I enter my third trimester at week 28, I'll need to start eating around 6000 calories." Sam stated.
"And, is it difficult to eat that much?" He asked.

"It's harder than I originally thought. I can't just have any extra food for calories, I have to make sure I'm eating the right things for our babies. I stick to a very healthy diet to ensure I eat the correct nutrients." Sam stated.
"And, what would you eat in an average day?" He asked.

"Um, I normally have a bowl of fruit salad, a bowl of muesli with almond milk and a fruit smoothie for breakfast. Then I'll have a granola bar and a fruit pastry mid morning. And for lunch I usually have a sandwich or a roll, with salad and something sweet like a cookie after. Late afternoon, I'll have some dried fruit and unsalted nuts. For dinner, I usually just have the same meal as Tom, just in a much bigger portion and just before bed I always have a cup of hot chocolate to warm me up." Sam explained.

"Okay. Have you decided on names for your babies yet?" George asked.
"Not yet. We want to wait until they're born before we decide on names so that we can make sure that they suit them." Tom stated.
"Okay, and do yo plan on breastfeeding or using formula?"
"I've spoken to the babies' consultant, and for the first few days of their lives, they'll probably be on an IV drip that will provide their nutrients straight to their blood because their stomachs will still need to develop. Therefore they probably won't need breast milk, nor formula. However, as soon as they're ready to accept milk, I am planning on expressing milk for them to be fed via a nasogastric tube that goes from their nose to their stomach." Sam stated. "And once their ready, I will breastfeed them directly however it will all depend on how much milk my body produces because if I don't produce enough milk for eight babies, I will have to use a formula sometimes."

"Bye." Tom said as he closed the door. He then went and joined Sam on the sofa. "I thought they'd never leave." He joked.
"Mm. Now all we've got to do is wait until they send us a copy." Sam stated.
"Yep. Now c'mon, what do you want for lunch?" Tom asked.
"Can I have a toasted BLT without mayonnaise in the sandwich, but with potato wedges and mayonnaise on the side please?" Sam asked. "And don't let the mayonnaise touch anything." She threatened.
"Of course." Tom laughed as he got up and headed to the kitchen.

A few days later, Tom's alarm had just gone off to get up for work. Sam was still in the shower so he headed to the door to check to see if the newspaper had been delivered yet, when he noticed a thick brown envelope with the usual goodbye magazine logo on it on the door mat. He decided against opening it without his wife there so he went back into the bedroom and waited for Sam.

A few minutes later, she exited the ensuite with her body wrapped in a towel to find Tom sitting on the bed.
"The magazine's here." Tom stated.
"Ooh, let's have a look." Sam said as she slowly sat down next to Tom. He opened the envelope to unveil the front cover where the biggest words were: Octomum's exclusive interview.
"Wow, nice nickname." Tom said sarcastically before he opened it and they were on the first six pages. There were various pictures. The largest one was of Sam wearing no clothes with one arm across her chest, and the other arm resting underneath her bump. Her curled hair hung loosely over her back as she gave a small smile for the camera. "You look absolutely beautiful." Tom stated.
"Thanks." Sam smiled, because for once she was actually genuinely happy of the photo. There were also other photos of Sam and Tom hugging and kissing, and one of Sam pretending to be asleep on the sofa. There was one picture that took up an entire page showing all of the ultrasound pictures of Baby A to Baby H. Then they began to read the article.

Samantha 'Sam' Kent, 28, gave us an exclusive interview of her pregnancy with octuplets, and how it's going so far. Sam is married to Tom Kent and the babies were conceived naturally, after the couple 'wanted to try for a baby on our (their) wedding night.' However, their first scan at 12 weeks gestation revealed that the couple weren't expecting one baby, nor twins, nor triplets. They were expecting eight babies!

Natural conception of octuplets is considering to be a one in four quadrillion chance making this the first ever recorded case. Not only did Sam beat those odds, but with no family history of multiples, and Sam is a young woman, of an English decent, with no previous pregnancies and no fertility treatments the odds are reduced even further. Some physicians say it's about time that this happened, however others say that it is completely unexpected.

When asked, Sam -who is currently 18 weeks gone- told us that she has to eat a staggering 4400 calories a day to sustain the pregnancy, and when she reaches her third trimester, at 28 weeks, she will have to eat an astounding 6000 calories a day to keep her babies healthy!

However, nothing could've been done to prevent a spina bifida for Baby C and his father has told us that 'he will need an operation to fix the problem' when he is strong enough for the procedure. In total, there are three boys and five girls, and the genders seemed to please both parents, though it's not unsurprising that Sam was a little happier about being able to 'outnumber the boys'.

Sam told us that at a twenty weeks she will be going on maternity for the 'benefit of our babies' because her, her husband and her obstetrician are all worried about premature labour. And at twenty four weeks, Sam will be admitted of hospital and put on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy.

The babies are planned to be born at Holby City Hospital where there is a medical team of 46 consultants, surgeons, doctors, nurses and midwives all allocated to care for Sam and her babies. Once born by c-secion, the babies will be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) where the capacity, is an ironic 8 babies. Each baby will have it's own healthcare team dedicated to ensuring it's survival yet despite all of the precautions, there are no guarantees of survival because in history, of all the cases of octuplets, there has only ever been one full set that have survived. The majority of octuplets die within a week of birth because they are too small and underdeveloped to function but that doesn't mean that the parents aren't optimistic.

Sam said 'We both know the risks and the potential complications to me and to the babies. But I have an amazing team who have looked after me throughout my pregnancy so far and I have met every single person that will play a part in keeping me and my babies alive and I know that they will try their very best. Whatever happens, I won't be alone because me and Tom are there for each other.'

Tom added 'Sam's right. There nothing we can do about what's going to happen other than to make sure that Sam takes it easy so there's no point in panicking about things that we don't even know will happen. We'll just have to deal with each obstacle, but we'll deal with them together.'

Sam is scheduled for an elective c-section at 34 weeks gestation and we will be following their story closely in the coming months.

"Wow, that's a lot nicer than I thought it'd be, but I didn't think that they'd need to put my age in." Sam admitted.
"Mm. Right, I'd better go for a shower okay." Tom pecked Sam on the forehead before he went to the ensuite.

Sorry this chapters a bit crap, it didn't quite flow as well as I thought it would... But anyhow, the next chapter will be Sam's last day in the ED before she goes on maternity leave. Please review :)