‘All our babies are perfect!’
Thithis awesome ffoursome were bborn within three minutes of each other
Hugging her husband and staring adoringly at her precious new brood, tired but happy mum-of-quads Natalie Te Aroha says she’d do it all again if the prize was a set of quadruplets as gorgeous as hers.
And it’s hard to disagree. When Woman’s Day drops by to meet them, the non-identical quads – three girls and one boy – are all gummy smiles in their cute swaddles and beanies.
“Every time I hold them, the love I feel is unexplainable,” gushes the personal trainer, 30, from Bunbury, WA, who had planned to have “one more baby” as a sibling for her daughter Kiana, two.
DIFFICULT JOURNEY
“When I hugged them for the first time, I knew immediately I could do it all over again, despite the pain and sickness of my pregnancy.”
It definitely wasn’t an easy journey for Natalie. The first 15 weeks was marred by swathes of nausea, then from 17 weeks onwards, she didn’t go a day without severe rib pain. “I’d use a heat pack for relief, or ice, but then I’d feel guilty the babies were getting too cold,” she giggles.
Natalie carried the quads to 34 weeks, which by multiple birth standards is a podium finish. Doctors aim for 32 weeks, but 70 per cent of quadruplet births arrive before that.
Natalie also suffers from anovulation, where the body produces eggs but they don’t release. In order to get pregnant, she had to self-inject a hormone to help her release eggs. It’s the same method she and husband Kahn, 34, used to conceive their first daughter – but with four times the success rate.
“I was sure I saw two sacs in one of my first ultrasounds,” recalls Natalie, of the day she discovered the news that would change her life forever.
“The technician looked up and asked, ‘How many do you think you’re having?’ I guessed two, but he shook his head, so I said, ‘Three?’ He shook again and held up four fingers and my jaw dropped in disbelief. How did my body release four eggs?!”
At 34 weeks, the quads simply ran out of room to grow. The excited parents checked themselves into Perth’s King Edward Memorial Hospital for a planned caesarian.
They decided not to find out the gender of the babies, so chose four girls’ names and four boys’ names, just in case. It turned out they needed one boy’s name and three girls’ names.
Their son Maioha – a Maori name meaning “warm greetings” and pronounced My-or-ha – was born first, with Natalie crying tears of joy at his safe arrival. Then, within the next three minutes, came the textbook deliveries of his three sisters – Frankee, Marley and Maddison.
PERSONALITY PLUS!
“I’m very proud of how far my body got me,” says Natalie. “All of our babies are perfect and there’s not a single health problem amongst them.
“Maioha is very handsome, always hungry and already a mummy’s boy. Frankee feels like she’s going to be our party girl. Marley is petite, very alert and shows a real interest in the world already, while Maddison is an old soul. It looks like she’s been here before.
“There’s a lot of loose skin on my belly and I don’t think it’ll ever be the same, but this has been a very positive experience for both of us. Kahn thanks me every day for growing our babies and I can honestly say I’d do it again... but I won’t. Five is enough!”