As a postal worker, Juan Figueroa has seen his share of special deliveries. But his wife, Catherine, has topped them all – with the delivery of triplets after a high-risk pregnancy at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Center.
The proud parents, who have no other children, welcomed the three boys – Steven, Joseph and Anthony – five weeks early on January 5. The newborns, who weighed between 3.5 and 5 pounds at birth, were cared for in Mercy’s Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the only such facility on the South Shore of Nassau County that is designated by New York State to care for all premature and/or sick newborns.
“The specially-trained nurses and staff in Mercy’s NICU have extensive experience with such fragile babies,” said Dr. Swarna Devarajan, Director of Neonatology and Newborn Services. “Each year, we care for some 300 preemies among the nearly 1,500 babies born at Mercy.”
Figueroa, a 32-year-old second grade special education teacher at P.S. 123 in South Ozone Park, became pregnant with the aid of fertility medications.
“As a teacher I love children and we were eager to have a family,” she said. “I just didn’t expect to have one this large all at once.”
