AT the height of the Cold War prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when news about the presidency battle between Bush and Dole and Rajiv Gandhi dismissing a state chief minister dominated the pages of Arab News, a story about the first Saudi quintuplets featured at the top of Page 12 of an edition of Arab News published on Feb. 13, 1988.
Under the pictures of three of the five fragile babies in incubators with breathing apparatus connected to their mouths and tubes attached to their delicate bodies, the headline read, “Quintuplets Improving in King Khalid National Guard Hospital.”
Nineteen years later, the five miracle babies — now men full of life — are enough to make their father, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, go over the moon. The babies were born with some health complications but have recovered and are living life to the max.
Fahad, Abdullah, Sultan, Khalid and Abdulaziz are now in their first year of college and flaring with ambitions to be special, as they were special at birth. Although they were born at the same time, they share little physical similarities. However, on meeting them it is clear that they share the same spirit.
“It was hard to raise five children at the same time. People suffer mentally and financially when they have twins, forget about having quintuplets,” said their father, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, who works in the real estate sector. Saeed’s proud picture was also carried on that 1988 edition of Arab News. Speaking to him surrounded by his sons, he hardly looks any different.
Saeed said his wife, Salha Al-Ghamdi, was barren for five years and so the couple considered their five sons to be a great blessing. “Although it was a challenging task, I’m very thankful to Allah that I have such wonderful boys,” Saeed told Arab News, who visited the Al-Ghamdi family recently at their neatly furnished apartment in the Al-Safa district of Jeddah.
“We used to have to take them together everywhere we went, all five of them. If one got sick then all of them would have to come with their brother to hospital. This continued for quite some time while they were young,” he said.
Speaking to Arab News in 1988, an anxious Saeed, asked about his plans in bringing up his sons, said, “I need all the help I can, especially with my limited income.” Saeed and Salha have surely done well in the 19 years since.
Currently, all of the brothers aim to obtain scholarships to complete their college education abroad. The father is all for his sons pursuing further education, but said, “I can’t afford to send them all abroad.”
Fahad, the oldest of the five, said, “It is my dream to become an expert computer engineer.” He added that each of his brothers has a separate identity and that they are all supportive of each other.
“We went to the same school at the same time, we looked like a bunch of friends of the same age. No one believes we are twin brothers born at the same day,” said Fahad.
Abdullah, the second oldest, is attracted to mechanical engineering and is currently undergoing training at Toyota. Abdullah added that, together with his siblings, he wants their parents to be proud of them all. “We feel and understand what our parents went through in raising us up and we feel responsible and obliged to make them happy and proud,” said Abdullah with a confident smile.
Sultan, who was born third, has a different dream. “Business is what I love, especially dealing with used cars,” he said, adding that he loves to spend time at the used car market to see how people buy and sell.
“I want to be a sports anchor,” said Khalid, the fourth in line. Khalid has embraced his passion by applying at the Arabian Radio and Television (ART), where he has been accepted as a trainee. He wants to further pursue his dream by becoming an English announcer at a foreign channel.
Abdulaziz, the fifth son, wants to learn English so he can continue his higher education abroad. “I’d love to study international law and become an expert in law,” he said.
At the end, all five of the brothers say they feel special and want to work as hard as possible to stay together and become a source of pride to their parents and their country.
