She Gave Birth To 6 Boys & 2 Girls At Once And Lost All 8 Within 3 Days!

'I cradled each of them for two-and-a-half hours as they died in my arms. It was horrible. Truly horrible.'

Mandy Allwood (pictured left) - the original Octomum - will mark 17 years since her octuplets passed away in her arms. In September 1996, she gave birth to six boys and two girls - just 24 weeks into her pregnancy (pictured top right with hubby). Within hours of being born, each had died. They were buried in tiny coffins at West Norwood Cemetery, South London (pictured bottom right).The eight white coffins of the babies were topped by pink posies for the two girls and blue for the six boys.

Now, as she marks the week her children Kypros, Adam, Martyn, Cassius, Nelson, Donald, Kitali and Layne would have celebrated their 17th birthday, Mrs Allwood has said she still relives the death of each of her children, who were born - and died - over the course of three days.

Her story was featured in newspapers around the world, on the Oprah Winfrey show, and she even had a personal message of support from Princess Diana but she said, despite going on to have three daughters, she was still unable to recover from her devastating loss.

She said she prayed to God when she felt the last of her children being born that at least one of them would live, only for her eighth child to die too.

The years that followed have seen Mrs Allwood descend into depression, suicide attempts and alcohol addiction.