A Record I Do Not Wish to Break! Quintuplets.
Aug 2 2007
In nearby Cedar Park, Texas a couple just had quintuplets (yes 5 babies). I wish them luck and will contact them to see if they would like a a free subscription to Baby Manager. I wonder if she will try to breastfeed or pump…
Cedar Park couple gives birth to record-breaking quintuplets
Babies and mom are healthy
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
A Cedar Park woman gave birth to quintuplets Tuesday morning, breaking a national record in the process.
The three girls and two boys weighed a combined 21 pounds, 7.2 ounces, besting the previous heaviest quintuplets by 6 ounces, according to doctors at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix.
Dave Cruz
Rachelle Wilkinson of Cedar Park says hello to one of her newborns moments after delivery Tuesday morning at a Phoenix hospital.
Rachelle Wilkinson and her babies were doing well after the Caesarean section birth there, family members said, and people across the country were already calling Tuesday to congratulate and offer donations.
It’s Central Texas’ second set of quintuplets; the first was born in 2002 to a Kyle family. “It was kind of overwhelming,” said the babies’ father, Jayson Wilkinson.
“They started bringing all of these babies, and they were all crying and wiggling. It was one of those sort of surreal things to think all of these kids are mine.”
The couple already had two young children but had been trying to have another baby since early 2005. After four months, Rachelle Wilkinson, 31, was told by doctors that she was not ovulating and would need to try fertility drugs. Every night, Wilkinson injected a shot of Gonal-F, a hormone that stimulates egg production, into her leg.
They knew there was a chance for multiple births. Twenty percent for twins, 5 percent for triplets, they were told. The prospect of quintuplets never came up.
In December, the couple learned Rachelle was pregnant. Three weeks later, they went in for her first ultrasound. When the doctor started moving the device over Wilkinson’s belly, one beating heart appeared on the monitor. He moved it again, and another appeared.
“After a few seconds of looking at it, he just kind of held out five fingers and said, ‘There’s five,’ ” Jayson Wilkinson said.
Shock followed.
“I said, ‘How can this happen?’ ” Rachelle Wilkinson said. “There really isn’t even a word to describe that feeling when they tell you have five babies in there.”
The couple quickly contacted Dr. John Elliott, an expert in multiple births in Phoenix. Elliott has helped deliver 88 sets of quadruplets and seven sets of quintuplets in 20 years.
In April, Rachelle Wilkinson moved in with family near Phoenix so that she could be close to Elliott and his staff.
Her belly soon ballooned so big that her 4-year-old daughter, Kaiya, couldn’t get her arms around it. Instead, Kaiya would kiss it five times.
Though the average time for quintuplets to be in the womb is 28 weeks, Elliott said, Wilkinson wanted to carry the babies for 34 weeks to ensure they were healthy. That lengthy term itself was just a few days shy of another record.
Family and doctors say all of the infants are healthy — two are on respirators, and the largest has been moved to the regular hospital nursery. The smallest baby weighs 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and the largest weighs 5 pounds, 1.2 ounces.
The Wilkinsons said they expect to stay in Phoenix for two weeks before coming back to Cedar Park.
Jayson Wilkinson plans to take a little time off from his job with National Instruments, an Austin software company, to help care for the babies. Rachelle Wilkinson used to teach statistics at Austin Community College but plans to stay at home for now.
A fellow mother of multiples, Susan Friar of San Antonio, has some advice for the Wilkinsons: create a schedule, and remember that each child is an individual.
“Life with multiples is so much fun because of the bond that they have together — and the fact that it’s rare. You’re like a traveling circus everywhere you go,” said Friar, a mother of triplets and a board member of the San Antonio Area Mothers of Multiples group.
In 2004, 86 sets of either quintuplets or higher were born in the U.S., according to the National Organization of Mothers of Twins Club, a support group for families of multiples.
Rachelle Wilkinson said she and her husband always wanted a family that was big enough to fit comfortably in a minivan.
“I guess we’ve outgrown that,” she said.
Learn more
To contact the family or make a donation, visit www.wilkinsonquints.org.
mmixon@statesman.com; 246-0043
Author: Aruni | Filed under: baby, baby manager | Comments Off on A Record I Do Not Wish to Break! Quintuplets.
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