Woman, 42, Gets Unexpected News During Delivering Triplets
Woman, 42, Gets Unexpected News During Delivering Triplets
Kimberly Fugate was just an average mother with a beautiful 10 year old daughter. She had no plan to have another baby. It was a big surprise the day she discovered that she was pregnant and going to be a mother for a second time. What was shocking was that she was pregnant with not one, not two, but three daughters! Little did she know that there was one more big surprise coming and here is wake happened to her during delivering triplets.
Fugate was 13 weeks pregnant when she was told that she was going to have triplets. She did not have very much time to prepare because the babies were born more than two months early. Just when she thought that life couldn’t be any crazier, the biggest surprise of all came.
She was at the hospital to give birth. Everything was going well. The first baby was born and then the second. After the third baby was born, Kimberly heard the doctor shout “I have more feet”. She was so surprised that she screamed “No!” out loud. But the real answer was yes. Kimberly gave birth to four identical little girls that day.
Life was very dangerous for Kimberly’s babies. They were born two months too soon, and they weighed only two and a half pounds. They had to live in the hospital for over three months. They needed around the clock medical care. The four tiny babies were too small to breathe on their own. They had tubes in their mouths to give them oxygen.
Even with careful medical care, the babies nearly died several times. If one baby had a good day, another one had a bad day. Sometimes their heart rates dropped so low that they almost died. This was a lonely and frightening time for Kimberly, who stayed at a guesthouse to be close to her babies. She had no family with her, and she kept her older daughter at home. The nurses, doctors and other parents in the guest house became her temporary family. They told her “We’re going to get through this. We’re going to make it.”
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Triplet births are extremely rare and happen only once in 1000 births. Quadruplets are even rarer. In 2007, there were only 3500 sets of quadruplets in the world. Identical quadruplets, like Kimberly’s family, are the rarest of all. Today there are only 60 to 70 sets of identical triplets in the entire world.
Premature births, which happen often for triplets and quadruplets, can be dangerous. 90% of triplets are born too soon, and this can cause many health problems. Usually the babies do not weigh very much at birth, which increases the risk of complications at birth. They are also more likely to experience vision loss, hearing loss, and cerebral palsy.
Mothers of triplets are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and diabetes. They will need to see their doctors more often and are sometimes advised to have bed rest for the duration of their pregnancy.
Thankfully, the quadruplets slowly grew strong enough to go home. The house that Kimberly lived in with her husband and daughter was too small for four more children. They needed to move into a larger house with four bedrooms to make room for them all.
The four young sisters are calm and happy, but sometimes they all start to cry at once. This is very stressful for their mother and devoted older sister! They have also become celebrities with over 700,000 Facebook friends and their own Youtube videos.
Life has not been the same since the day that Kimberly got the incredible news that she was going to have triplets. But when she sees the smiles on their faces, and hears them babble to each other she feels like “the luckiest mother in the whole world.”
Here is a video where you can see Kenleigh, Kristen, Kayleigh and Kelsey celebrate their first birthday!