Posted on 02/18/2014 3:46:51 PM PST by NYer
Kimberly Fugate was expecting identical triplets. After a grueling labor process and the birth of three children, Fugate was ready for some much-needed rest. But rest would have to wait as the doctor shouted, “More feet!”
“They had got the three out and they said, ‘More feet,’” the Mississippi mother said. Fugate is now the proud mother of a statistical improbability – four identical newborn babies.
From the ABC News report:
A fourth identical quadruplet had somehow been missed by numerous ultrasounds, managing to keep her existence hidden until she popped out behind three of her identical sisters last week at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
“It’s one surprise after another,” Fugate said.
The Fugate four, named Kenleigh Rosa, Kristen Sue, Kayleigh Pearl and Kelsey Roxanne after family members, arrived three months earlier than expected, and just a day before their mother’s 42nd birthday.
All four are currently doing well in neonatal intensive care after being born nearly 13 weeks premature. The girls will need to remain in observation, but Kimberly says she hopes to have them out by early May, on their original due date.
“I haven’t been able to hold them yet,” Fugate said. “It will be very exciting to get to take them home and love them.”
Dr. James Bofill, a professor of maternal fetal medicine at the hospital said the odds of conceiving identical quadruplets is astonishingly rare, especially in a case like Fugate’s, where she became pregnant without the use of fertilization drugs or treatments.
“The odds of spontaneous quadruplets is one in every 729,000 live births,” Bofill said. “The chances of having identical quadruplets [are] almost incalculable.”
Kimberly Fugate and her husband Craig are also parents to another daughter Katelyn, 10. The pair have set up a Facebook page to keep relatives updated on the quadruplets’ progress.
MS ping.
Wow! Just wow! God is good!
I feel sorry for poor dad — the only man in a house full of females. :)
We had 9 kids in my family. My mother called us her “gang”.
Great memories. And I still have a wonderful time when I am with my brothers and sisters.
“MORE FEET!” Precious! Our Mississippi Miracle, and some good news, for a change. :-D
My niece became pregnant with triplets without the use of fertilization drugs or treatments. In fact she told me that when she became pregnant, she and her husband were using a “prevent defense” and she was still nursing her daughter born only three months earlier. Needless to say it was a complete and joyful surprise. Her new OBY, a specialist in high risk pregnancies (she and her husband fired the first one after he told them she should have a selective reduction, i.e. abort one or two of them because he didn’t think she could bring them to term), told them that all three were girls and could all be identical but that they wouldn’t know for sure until after their birth.
It turned out that two of the triplets are identical twins and the third is a fraternal twin – two eggs fertilized, one split. Then again a lot of people see her girls and think they are quads since their older sister is only 11 months older and the triplets, even though they were born preemies at 32 weeks, are as tall as their sister now, the triplets are 5 and “big sis” is 6. Oh and there is even “bigger sis” age 19, my niece’s oldest daughter from her first marriage and big brother, their dad’s 16 year old son from his previous marriage. It is one crazy, loud, hectic, happy household.
BTW my niece refers to the triplets as the “minions”.
Lol...he can do what my dad did...get a boy dog ;)
lighten up, for chrissake! God put puppies and kittens here too, (in litters).
seriously, this woman is 42? poor kids.
What a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing it.
Yikes Ann, you are in a snit tonight.
I guess I better not mention that I call my 4 dogs my “pup children”. :)
You are all sick.....comparing your PETS to children!! I had a dog I loved, but she in no way compared to a CHILD of GOD!!
Friends of ours who had four boys adopted two identical twin two-year-old girls from Japan. All our boys were in junior high then and nicknamed the girls Ping and Pong. Even after close to 40 years the girls still go by those names.
May God bless and keep this family.”
And provide their father with a very well paying job!
Chillax. Some people, for one reason or another, did not get to have children. Some people never found a suitable spouse, some people were infertile, it doesn’t matter why. Parenthood just didn’t happen for them, as much as they wanted to attain that happy state. So at least they have pets to love. They should come home to an empty house every day, or not feel the joy of loving up another being and being loved in return? Their pets occupy the “ecological niche” of children for them because that niche is empty and nature abhors a vacuum.
The odds they reported, 1 in every 729,000 births
against the world birth rate - 134,028,000 /year (2013 est)
[255 births a minute * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 365 days]
means it could have happened 183.85 times this past year
(134,028,000 / 729,000) across the world collectively.
Somehow I don’t think that happened in any given year. I wonder if someone was off in their calculation somewhere by an order of 10; that would have made the odds of IDENTICAL guadruplets in the world births last year about 1.85 times.
It doesn’t necessarily apply to pets. the definition is: : the offspring at one birth of a multiparous animal.
Multiparous: producing many or more than one at a birth.
Which is what happened in this case.
Second, you seriously need to take a chill pill. This is really what you want to be upset about?
RE: “LITTER” is GARBAGE.
Are you trying (and failing) to make a clever play on words or do you really not know that there is another definition. (I’m not trying to be insulting with that second part - if you’re not a dog or cat person, it’s certainly possible.)(I plead the fifth on my intentions on the first part.)
(2. the group of young animals born to an animal at one time. “a litter of five kittens” synonyms: brood, family)
Puppies and kittens are so cute that the comparison is hardly a negative one.
RE: “It’s TACKY to call ANOTHER’s family a LITTER!”
It’s NOT as TACKY as the constant OVERUSE of ALL-CAPS for EMPHASIS. (Seriously. Don’t do it. It doesn’t help make your point. It just annoys people.)
5/12
There is an older sibling as well - another sister, I believe.
That was an amazing book - much better than the Steve Martin movies.
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