Kimberly Fugate had no idea that she was pregnant until her 13th week. She went into labor just before her 42nd birthday when she was 28 weeks pregnant.
It was quite a surprise for Kimberly to get pregnant in her early forties. In 2013, the mom of a 10-year-old daughter, Katelyn, was told that she could be expecting triplets. Moreover, it was going to be a rare set of triplets because she and her husband, Craig, had successfully conceived the babies without IVF. That was something incredible considering the age factor and natural conception.
To hear that she would be having triplets, after all that was like an icing on the cake. Left the couple with very little time to prepare for the three babies.”. Their unpreparedness was amplified with something even more unexpected in the delivery room.
Once the doctors had gotten the three identical baby girls out, they said, “More feet.” That left Kimberley in an instant shock. “No!” she said. But here arrived the fourth identical baby girl, much to the astonishment of all. It was something that Kimberly and Craig could hardly handle.
The couple named their quadruplet girls Kenleigh Rosa, Kristen Sue, Kayleigh Pearl, and Kelsey Roxanne (in their birth order).
“It’s all been rather overwhelming when you think about how many changes will have to be made,” Fugate said elsewhere. “But I am just trying to take everything one day at a time. I know it will all work out.”
A year after her delivery, Kimberley also stated that she was loving motherhood. “Just getting up in the morning and seeing the smiles on their faces, hearing them coo at me and listening to them babble at each other — the joy is overwhelming. I know every mom is partial to her babies, but I feel like I have the prettiest babies with the prettiest smiles. And those dimples …The babies were the biggest surprise of my life, and I couldn’t imagine my life without them. I believed that God picked me to have these quadruplets, and I felt that He would take care of them and allow them to survive. To see how far they’ve come makes me feel very blessed,” she said elsewhere.
While the quadruplets changed Kimberly’s life in a single moment, her doctor James Bofill was both baffled and a bit embarrassed. He couldn’t believe when his colleague sent him the news that a fourth was arriving.
For Kimberly, the new additions to the family make her feel like the luckiest mom ever even though she wasn’t planning to start over with more children. Her life is changed forever.
Watch the incredible birth story of Fugates here:
Sometimes pregnancies can be so unpredictable – yet welcoming! The story or Sarah and Bill Imbierowicz is just another example. Read on for more here ……
Shocking Surprise For Parents Of Triplets. You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!
Here are few interesting facts about quadruplets that you might be interested in:
- Spontaneous conception of quadruplet is a very rare occurrence. Most of the quadruplet births have been attributed to mediating reproductive techniques such as in-vitro fertilization or fertility-enhancing drugs.
- As of 2005, the odds of quadruplet pregnancies were estimated by 1 in 571,787 pregnancies. Later statistics revealed the rarity to be 1 in 729,000 births. The odds of identical quadruplets is ambiguous at 13 million to one. Multiple Births Canada (MBC) suggests that an estimated 90% of quadruplet pregnancies are a result of assisted fertilization.
- In 2008, a woman in Maryland was known to give birth to a quadruplet that included three identical triplets. The conception was the result of IVF. In this case, two embryos that were transferred to the mother were successfully fertilized. One embryo split and then split again to produce the triplets. It was reported as a rare occurrence with less than 100 such cases documented in the United States alone.
- Quadruplets do not always share the same birthdate. In few cases, there could be a delayed interval with babies being born few days or few weeks apart.
- The gestation period of a quadruplet pregnancy is about 31.3 weeks unlike the 40 weeks of a full-term pregnancy.
- A quadruplet pregnant woman can gain 40-100 pounds of weight during her pregnancy.
- The average birthweight of quadruplet is 3 ¼ pounds.
- Quadruplet births are usually performed through C-section with just about 3% being delivered vaginally.
- There are 3500 quadruplet sets in the world, of which only 60 of them are identical.
- New York has the highest number of quadruplets in the world.
- The most premature quadruplets born was in 1997 at 25 weeks and 1 day.
- Quadruplet babies will need about 30,000 diapers before they are potty trained!
