Multiple Birth Awareness Week

Many times in the past year we have been asked if we wanted to have multiples. This question really has two answers. We didn't "want" to have multiples when we started fertility treatments, we wanted a baby of our own to love, however from the moment we found out that we were expecting the quads we wanted them...ALL of them.

Every time we go out in public I get the "you've got your hands full" countless times. Yes, my hands are full but my heart is fuller! We truly do not have it as rough as people think we do. We follow a routine, take the babies everywhere with us and I am able to care for them all day alone when I need to. They are a lot of work but they are soooooo much fun!

It is amazing that 4 babies were born at the same time, from the same parents, raised in the same home, with the same rules and are so completely different! Each of them is totally unique and have such different personalities, they each have different strengths and weaknesses and each one of them know just how to work mommy and daddy!

Here are some interesting quadruplet facts:

The state with the highest population of quadruplets is New York, followed by New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

There are about 3500 sets of quadruplets worldwide; only 60 or so are identical or monozygotic.

Parents of quadruplets will change close to 30,000 diapers before their kids are potty trained.

National average gestation for quads is 29 weeks. The most premature surviving quads were born at 23 weeks. The longest gestation was 37 weeks.

The incidence of quadruplet birth rose more than 400% in the last quarter of the 20th century, but rates have declined somewhat in the years since 2000.

Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Arizona is believed to have delivered the most sets of quadruplets.

There have been cases of one woman giving birth to 4 sets of quadruplets in her lifetime.

The youngest mother to give birth to spontaneous quads was just 15 years of age. The oldest mother was 55 years of age.