Doctors had advised to terminate two of the babies during the pregnancy, after they discovered that one of the eggs had split and the surrogate was pregnant with triplets.

However the fathers decided against taking the advice and the babies were born prematurely in early July, weighing each only a little over a kilogramme, and one of them still requires heart surgery in the coming months.

But after weeks in hospital, all three children are home with their happy parents in Pretoria, fitted with alarms to monitor their breathing and supported by two nurses.

According to Sky News, the Menelaous are believed to be the first same sex couple in South Africa, possibly in the world, to have triplets – two girls and a boy – which include identical twins, using a surrogate.