As the ultrasound scanner picked up two tiny heartbeats, Julie Dalgetty’s face broke into a huge smile.
Husband Stuart let out a burst of laughter before the tears began to fall and he slumped over and started hyperventilating.
It is, perhaps, an understandable reaction for any dad-to-be who has just discovered he is going to have twins.
But for Stuart and Julie, it was a doubly big shock.
After seven years of heartbreak and IVF costing thousands of pounds, the couple finally had the twin babies they were desperate for.
But beating odds almost as high as a lottery jackpot, doctors had just told the couple they were having another set of twins – naturally.
And Julie conceived just 10 months after giving birth to the first set.
Now the family’s home in Whitley Bay, Tyneside, is in cheerful chaos as she and Stuart, 39, cope with nine-month-olds Molly and Nell, and Lily and Daisy, two.
Each day they change 24 nappies, use the washing machine and dishwasher three times, and wash and sterilise 14 bottles.
The couple own three double buggies and a specially built double-decker quad.
But despite their hectic life, they know how lucky they are.
Librarian Julie, 37, says: “The odds on us having a second set of twins is up there with a lottery win.
"People’s reactions when we tell them are horrified. It is hard work but we wouldn’t go back for a second.”
The moment they learnt the news is etched on Julie’s memory.
“They did an internal scan and there were two little heartbeats,” she recalls.
“Stuart started laughing quite hysterically and then he just started sobbing and hyperventilating.
"The nurses got him water and put his head between his legs.
“He couldn’t stop crying, not through happiness but terror. He thought this can’t really be happening – he was in denial.”
After the difficult years the couple had endured, an element of denial was not surprising.
They married in 2004 and immediately started trying for a family but there was no sign of a positive pregnancy test.
Julie recalls: “We started trying for baby straight away. I was 28 at the time but a year went by and nothing happened.
“We had various investigations and they couldn’t find anything wrong with us and we just had to carry on.”
After four years, the couple were increasingly desperate and were eventually accepted for three courses of IVF at Newcastle Fertility Centre at Life.
They knew it would most likely be their last few chances to have a baby and the stress took its toll on their marriage.
Julie says: “Friends and family were getting pregnant and you couldn’t. I became bitter and twisted in a way.
"I got upset when I saw pregnant women.
“Things got worse as during IVF – all the hormones they put you on is like having raging PMT all the time.
"One minute I was screaming my head off at Stuart and the next I’d cry my eyes out.”
However as each attempt proved to be unsuccessful, Julie and Stuart’s anguish reached new levels.
“It just consumes you,” Julie remembers. “We would get our hopes up then they would be dashed.
"We had three failed attempts over a two-year period and at the end we thought it would never happen.”
After their third failed attempt, the couple began thinking about giving up.
Julie says: “We thought how far do we take this?
"We have to start paying £3,500 to £4,000 a go and we don’t earn a great deal of money and by this point you were having to think that we had been trying for our entire married life so when do we stop?
“I went to talk to a counsellor about it. She said: ‘Maybe you should start thinking about what life would be like without children.’”
After agonising over the decision, the couple opted for one last go and paid £4,000 from savings.
Julie went to hospital for a blood test and anxiously called to ask if the treatment had worked.
She said: “I could tell straight away. Usually they put a sad voice on but she had a happy voice. I was overjoyed.”
On past attempts, Julie obeyed every rule in the book, but for their final try, the couple went on a caravan holiday.
She says: “I relaxed and had a few drinks and for whatever reason it worked.
"I had two eggs put back in and they both stuck. It was amazing, I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
But they still worried. Julie adds: “I couldn’t say the word pregnant for a long time.
“I couldn’t help feeling that something bad was going to happen because that’s what happens to us.
"When we had the seven-week scan, we could see the two heartbeats and we were overjoyed.”
The arrival of their non-identical daughters in March 2011 – the first girls in Stuart’s family in 250 years – meant the couple had the perfect family in one go.
They settled into family life and when the twins were 10 months old the pair enjoyed a rare night out – to see medium Derek Acorah.
“A little while after the show I thought, ‘I haven’t had my period’ and I still had a pregnancy test lying about,” Julie says.
“There was a really faint line. I kept looking at it and thought I had to go and get a better one. It came out pregnant.
“Part of me was absolutely elated but I thought this can’t be possible.
"I had waited years for it to happen naturally and gone through all the fertility treatments.
“The other half was terrified because my twins were only 10 months old.
“They were still babies and we were only just starting to get some semblance of life back.
"I was dreading telling Stuart so I cooked him a nice meal that night and made him drink three quarters of bottle of wine, then I showed him the pregnancy test.
“He asked, ‘What does this mean?’ and I told him I was pregnant and it was Derek Acorah’s fault!”
Once the news sank in, the couple faced a worrying few months until their second set of twins – this time identical – arrived.
The couple were overjoyed but looking after two newborns and 18-month-old twins was far from easy at first.
But now they have managed to find a routine.
The day starts at 5.15am with the young twins’ first bottle, while Lily and Daisy sleep in a little later.
As the younger girls nap upstairs, Lily and Daisy have lunch before a nap, giving Julie and Stuart 15 minutes of peace before Molly and Nell wake up again.
After tea the babies are bathed and then put into cots before the older daughters’ turn. The girls then get a bedtime story.
“We clear up until nine and that’s when I have a glass of wine,” laughs Julie.
“Meal times are like a production line. Sometimes I put four high chairs in a line and feed them one after another. It’s factory feeding.”
Despite the sleepless nights and juggling act that is day-to-day life, Julie and Stuart would not have it any other way.
Awwwwwww. This brought tears to my eyes........
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