Published in The New York Times Lens Blog, The Washington Post, Metro UK, Duźy Format, and CNN
Courtney always wanted to be a mother. When told at 25 the devastating news that she may not be able to conceive, she didn’t waste time. She and her husband, Cameron, started fertility treatments right away. On her third round of IUI, Courtney conceived.
Courtney and Cameron were in the sonogram room, and the ultrasound tech introduced baby A and baby B. The couple was ecstatic to have twins, something they had secretly hoped for during IUI treatments as their efforts to conceive were so difficult. Then, after a burst of brief celebration, the tech asked Cameron to sit down, and then “introduced” baby C and D. “We left the office and Cameron and I just sat in the car in silence for about five minutes trying to digest it. When you’re told you’re having four, it’s such a shock that you don’t know how to react, you don’t even know how to feel,” Courtney explained.
Life since then has been a story of love and chaos; the quadruplets were born prematurely and needed to be in the NICU for over three months after birth. That they were born at 25 weeks and four days and survived is a medical miracle that was only made possible, like their conception, by modern medicine. The children have had other medical challenges along the way, including a brain bleed, multiple eye surgeries for one, a small heart surgery for all of the children, and other developmental therapies. Like many prematurely-born babies, the children have been developmentally delayed in some areas, and so Courtney and Cameron have had to work diligently to help the children catch up to milestones. The biggest yet, getting them all to kindergarten, which they accomplished this past fall.
The family’s life is like the lives of many families who have multiple children born at the same time--there’s a lot going on all the time, but at the heart, the commitment of building a family.