Mother celebrates quads’ first birthday
After defying doctors orders to have two aborted
The Robbins’ quadruplets turned one last week and their birthday presents — four blankets, a tent, a rocking snail and some plastic musical instruments — are arranged neatly in the family’s semidetached home. Routine and organisation are by-words for their parents Emma and Martin, who know that chaos would ensue if their sons’ lives were not regulated with military precision.
‘Even their menu is recorded on spreadsheets,’ says Emma. ‘
Bedtime, waking, naps, bottle-feeds and periods for play are also rigidly prescribed. ‘We stick to a timetable,’ says Emma, 31. ‘It throws them when their routine is disrupted, then they start to play up. Not only were they conceived naturally at odds of 750,000 to one, they are also the only leap year quads in Britain to have been born on February 29 — the chances of that are 3.5 million to one — and will therefore celebrate a birthday only every four years.
They are also flourishing despite the physical risks of multiple births. Indeed, when Emma —a former project manager— discovered she was pregnant with quads, she was advised repeatedly to ‘selectively reduce’ two of the foetuses to give the remaining pair a better chance of survival. She refused.
‘We knew about the things that could go wrong and I knew that even if all our boys survived, the pressure on our finances would be huge.
‘But I couldn’t bring myself to choose between them. How could anyone? I knew I had a strong marriage, that Martin would support and help me every step of the way, so I decided to let nature take its course.’
Emma and Martin are now embracing parenthood on an epic scale. ‘The boys are a joy,’ she says. ‘They’re hard work; not because they’re difficult babies, but because there are so many of them.
Silences are rare in the Robbins’ threebedroom home in Bristol, and even these are invariably punctuated by the washing machine churning through five loads each day. The household utility bills have trebled since the quads arrived; food costs £150 a week and the boys get through 300 nappies every fortnight. Their quad buggy, fully freighted, weighs 10 stone. Naturally people stare but while Martin, 39, relishes the attention, Emma does not.
‘I feel for Luke,’ she says. ‘He said that nobody loved him any more when the quads arrived, and my heart nearly broke in two. We try to give him as much one-to-one attention as possible but it’s been hard — although he’s starting to enjoy his brothers. When Martin comes home from work, he makes a point of spending time just with Luke.’ The Robbins, who have been married for four years, planned to have a second sibling for Luke.
They vividly remember the day, in October 2011, when a routine hospital scan disclosed that Emma was carrying quads.
She says: ‘The sonographer went silent and I wondered what was wrong — I was worried she couldn’t detect a heartbeat.
‘Then she said that she thought she could count four heart beats. Martin and I squeezed each other’s hands so tightly. We were in shock.
‘They handed me the number for the Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) and we walked to the bus stop.
‘We didn’t even have a car, and lived in a tiny two-bedroom terrace. We kept thinking that we just couldn’t afford to have quadruplets.’ I phoned TAMBA and they warned me the hospital would encourage me to selectively reduce my pregnancy, so I prepared myself mentally.’
For two weeks Emma considered her options. Then she and Martin made their decision: they would cope whatever the outcome. Emma recalls: ‘I had scans at 12, 14, 16 and 18 weeks. They asked about selective termination at every stage so that, in the end, I got angry and said I couldn’t do it.
Emma gave birth to her sons on February 29 last year, two months before her due date, by emergency Caesarean. Reuben was delivered first, weighing 2lb 14oz, followed by Zachary, 2lb 8oz, his twin Joshua, 3lb 1oz, then Sam, 2lb 13oz.
The quads spent the next six weeks in special care.
It was eight weeks before Emma and Martin took their sons home, strapped into car seats in their newly acquired people carrier.