A 21-YEAR-OLD IRISH woman and her partner are preparing to become the world’s first same-sex couple to have quintuplets.

Rosemary Nolan, herself a twin, already has a one-year-old daughter with her partner Melissa Keevers. The pair met in Brisbane when Nolan left Ireland in 2008 to travel around Australia.

Now Keevers, 27, is pregnant with quintuplets, conceived via donor insemination using sperm from an anonymous American donor.

Nolan told Australian magazine Woman’s Day:

People don’t know whether to congratulate us or comiserate. But we think it’s a miracle and we couldn’t be happier.

The surprise was heightened by the fact that Keevers did not have IVF: the fertility treatment is associated with increasing the chance of multiple pregnancy. The Irish Daily Mail did a swift calculation and say that the odds of Keevers conceiving quins are 65 million to one.

The couple say that although they know the pregnancy could carry health risks for mother and children, they would not consider aborting any of the foetuses. Nolan said:

We know that it’s a risk, and we had the option to terminate one or more, but how can you choose? Nature decided to give us these babies so nature can decide for us.

The couple visited Ireland when Keevers was pregnant with their first child Lilly. Nolan says her father took the news “pretty well” at the time but that “he made a comment that he wouldn’t have any grandchildren – so I’ve proved him wrong”.