You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on. Hey friends, I'm excited to share a brand new episode of our sister Mama Mea podcast. It's called Diary of a Birth.
And it's hosted by Cassenya Lukisch. This episode is about an amazing woman who gave birth to quadruplets. I picked this one for your no filter ears because it is a cracker of a story. Imagine having four babies at once. She answers all the questions that you've probably been wondering since I said the word quadruplets, like how do you actually fit them all in your body? And what is the birth like? And also what happens when they come out?
How do you even remember which one is which? It is a truly remarkable story, So take a listen and enjoy.
I'm Cassenya Lukitch and this is Diary of a Birth. I'll never forget the day that I found out that I was having my first baby, after two years of infanteen and the constant cycle of two weeks of hope then two weeks of disappointment. And anxiety. We got that positive pregnancy test and it was one of the most incredible days of my life. And if you, like me, struggle with falling pregnant, you'll know what a wondrous surprise it is to be told that finally you're with child, just like today's mum.
And then she puts on the sound and it's got the strong, like the strongest heartbeat ever, and oh, I gets emotional because that sound is like it's the heartbeat that's coming from inside you, and that's your baby, and that's the sound like that you have longed for for so long. We're just wailing like we're balley.
But for the woman telling this birth story, the moment was extra surprising. Four times as shocking, you might say.
So she's put the wand on my belly and I've seen like multiple like black circles, and then she's it away and I see like the color dropped from her face and I've instantly gone and she's gone. She goes, this isn't twins, this is she's what even is is quads quad quadruplets.
You won't believe the shocking rollercoaster of emotions she went through over an incredible pregnancy.
I was so scared. There was not an inch of excitement in me, to be completely honest, Like, I was just so overwhelmed with fear because this was just so unknown to me. Like I just didn't know what was happening. Four babies, What the hell? Like I can't carry four babies? Like, am I gonna die?
Get ready for the most incredible pregnancy story ever.
At thirty weeks I think I was measuring it. Fifty two weeks pregnant, I was massive and my lungs were getting compressed. I couldn't breathe properly because my lungs were so squished. I couldn't eat much because my stomach was getting squished.
So let's meet today's mum.
Hi, my name is Taylor, and this is the diary of my birth with my quadruplets, Daisy, Archie, Billy, and Charlie.
Taylor chewed Hope. Glacken is nothing short of a superwoman. Her story is unbelievable and you're in for such a treat just to hear her tell it. But let's start back before her life took its crazy turn.
Yeah, so life before the Cords was just very usual. Sean and I met in high school, being together now for over twelve years. We're very local to where we are, we're kind of born and raised in this area, and we're very family orientated people, so been together for a while, got married back in twenty twenty two, host COVID kind of thing, and I have always been very full was short about wanting to start a family, So that's something that we always knew would come. We just didn't know
that it would come this quick. But yeah, we're very sport orientated people, very social. We love our friends, but we're also real home people. We love getting around and doing DIY and yeah, that was kind of just us go around travel camping, and things have changed very quickly.
Taylor had endured a lot of health issues in the past.
So falling pregnant wasn't what I expected. So back when I was in my very very early twenties, I was told I had pcos so polcistic ovary syndrome and I was kind of told, do you want to have babies now? And I said no, but I do down the future. So we kind of just brushed it to the side and I just continued on managing my symptoms. But it wasn't until we got engaged, and I knew that we wanted to have babies coming up, and so that's when
I started preparing my body. Went and seeing my doctor and said, look, this is what's going to be our plan for the next few years. Can you help me start getting my body ready. So we started doing a bit of investigating and it led me very quickly to specialists and surprised to me, I had stage four endometriosis, so I didn't necessarily have painful periods or the pain
as such during a mental cycle. A lot of people explain with the edemitriosis, I had other issues bowe issues and pain like that because my ovary was attached to my bow with enemitriosis. So I was lucky enough to have all that removed and keep my ovary intact, which
was great. And they also seen that, yeah, my ovaries were quite enlarged because of the PCOS two, so all of that all cleaned up and they were like, Okay, you should be really fertile, now go on your way, and that most definitely wasn't the case.
Like so many women, Taylor realized that while she knew how babies were made, she didn't really know how to fall pregnant.
Just kept going with trying. Was kind of a bit naive in the situation. I was studying to be a primary teacher, and I still didn't know that much about the female body. Like I just I was really naive. It was amazing how much I didn't know. And here I am being a woman for what I was twenty seven I think at the time, and I didn't even know these things on how to get But anyways, we kept trying, and yeah, didn't work. I was then put on it's called lectrosol, so it encourages ovulation. Because I
wasn't ovulating. I wasn't having a period, So I was put on medication to enforce a period, to enforce ovulation, and still nothing was happening, no ovulation. I got put to a fertility specialist. She goes, you're not getting pregnant in any way, shape or form on this medication at the moment. So in order to get me just to ovulate, she had to triple my dose for double the time with this lectrosol. And we're tracking. I was getting blood tests tracking when I'm ovulating. Here we are trying to
have sex every second day, like it's just ridiculous. It just makes everything feel so procedural, and it just takes the fun out of everything, and it's just not the way that you plan to get pregnant. It takes a surprise out of it, It takes the joy out of Yeah, it just it just made everything feel really medical. But that's what we had to do, and so be it will do it.
After a year of tracking ovulation and not falling pregnant, Taylor's next step was IVF, but the doctors warned her that it wasn't going to be straightforward for her.
So my ovar is with chocolate block with follicles, which I was like, oh, that's great. Doesn't that mean I have this really high chance? But how she explained it to me was they're so full. Nothing can reach its full maturity inside your ovaries, and so you have these really immature follicles. But with IVF, their job is to stimulate those follicles and then they give you this drug
that gets you to release those follicles. And naturally you only normally release one or two follicles here and there. But here I am with chocol block over eaes. I think there's upwards of maybe even sixty and per overary there was a stupid number. So I was given like a really really low dose. And it came to the collection phase and I remember them going, Taylor, did you hear that we've got your first egg? We've got your
first egg? And then the rest was a blur and I remember them coming in and saying, Taylor, we got thirty and I was like, thirty eggs? What?
Like?
I know friends and family that have had IVF and they're getting four. I'm long thirty.
Five days after Taylor's collection, an incredible fourteen embryos had survived to the blastocyst stage, but then she fell ill and was hospitalized with ovarian hyperstimulation, which took a few months to recover from, meaning a delay in transferring any of the embryos into her. So remember that Taylor was still on letrosola this stage, as her PCOS meant she didn't naturally ovulate, but she was three months off the
IVF stimulation. Finally, three months after the retrieval date, it was time to implant the most viable embryo.
When you're going for your transfer, you have regular blood test to catch when you're ovulating, so as soon as you're ovulate five days later. You must have that transfer. The need to catch that ovulation window very carefully, and we go for the embryo transfer. It's just a wild experience. I was just reading through my journal notes about it.
And you work so hard for this day, and you think about getting pregnant, and you work so hard to get these eggs and get them to blastises, to get them to be an embryo, and you go in for this transfer appointment and it's five minutes, it's done and dusted. It's just like you're going in to get your eyebrows done. To these ladies, they're just so good at it. They're like, we've picked out your embryo, number five. Here it is. We're about to transfer. It's just one embryo. It's just
one embryo. And so they transfer it. We see the little light flash those that do if no. Apparently you look for the flash on the ultrasound machine. It's apparently a telltale signed to see if the embryo has gone through. And they're like, okay, off you go. We'll give you a call in two weeks to let you know if that's happened. So then you go on this two week dreaded weight. It is the longest two weeks of your life.
Like as soon as you walk out that appointment, first of all, you're like, I don't want to pooh because you're scared youre going to push this little embryo out. But they're like, don't worry, it won't happen. It's not going to fall out. But you're walking around with your legs held tired, like something's going to fall out of you. But yeah, two weeks we waited and it was so so stressful. But I instantly felt my boobs were getting bigger.
I was feeling a bit different, but I was way too scared to verbalize any of this because I didn't want to put any bad voodoo out there. I just was, Okay, let's just pray to the gods, because statistically, your first embryo transferred normally isn't that successful.
As someone who's gone through IVF, let me tell you, the waiting periods are absolute torture. It is a constant cycle. It's two weeks of hope, excitement. It's did this injection work? It's my eggs in the right place, Is my body do the right thing? Are my hormones doing the right thing. You feel like a pincushion. Waiting for phone calls from embryologists is another certain kind of hell because you're constantly
waiting for the phone call. You're staring at your phone waiting to see what's happening, and you do not want to miss that phone call. It is excruciating. The day that Taylor was due to receive her blood test results, the call came through at eleven am, but she torturously left the voicemail unheard so she could get the news with Sean that evening.
Before we listen to it, we both said, okay, all right, if this doesn't work, and we're pretty sure it hasn't worked, because we're looking at statistics here, we have another thirteen goes. This isn't give up stage. We need to stay positive in this journey because this journey can go on quite
a long time. And anyways, we press play and she says, congratulations still wakes me so emotional because that's the day you hope and you pray for, and oh, like we had wished of that day for so long and it was there and we were just like, oh, we just couldn't grasp what was happening. Around us, and we just held each other for so long, and we were just like, oh my God, like it's happened. We're pregnant. At that point, we're going, oh my god, we're pregnant with one baby, and gosh, things.
Changed coming up.
And then we walk out the door and then the weight just crushes me and I'm just in Shan's arms and We're just trying to get back to the car and I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we don't even know what to say to each other.
Every mom waits with baited breath for the all important dating scan, when you find out how many weeks pregnant you're measuring and the approximate date that you'll be blowing out those birthday candles each year. It made me the day you see their first tiny realms and hear their strong,
healthy heartbeats. Eight weeks later, Taylor and Sean returned to their IVF clinic to have their scan, and Taylor's account of finding out just how many bubs were in her stomach is stunningly vulnerable and honest.
As much as it's incredible, I need to be honest about how I felt in that situation. Because there's a lot of emotions that come with this. So we're waiting in the waiting room and aha, imagine if it's twins, La la la. So we go in, we sit down, We're in a room, Sean's beside me, We've got masks on, and there's a big TV in front of us, and the sonographers are my right. Sean's on my left shoulder,
and she's lovely. And I've seen a fair few ultra sounds in my times with my pcos and my adometriosis and getting ready to have this baby, so I kind of have gotten a grasp about what a belly should look like on an ultrasow machine. Sean doesn't know what he's looking at it. He could be looking at a
PlayStation screen, for early knows. And so she's put the wand on my belly and I've seen like multiple like black circles, and then she's ripped it away and I see like the color drop from her face and I've instantly gone, and she's gone. Sean's going, why is everyone? And like, what's going on here? Like I'm trying to say things, nothing's really coming out, And she just put her hand on my leg and she said, Taylor, you have multiple pregnancies in here. I have to count to
know how many you have in here. I can't even like fear. It was just fear. And so she started counting and she's put the warmth on. She's gone, okay, one, all right, two, and I'm like, holy crap. And she's gone three and I'm like, oh my god. Three, and then she's gone four. Oh, oh my god. For I'm instantly hysteric cool, like I can't breathe. I'm like I could feel my heart coming out of my chest. I like was trying to hold back that big like cry,
like I'm trying to regulate my breathing. And I remember like consciously thinking, Taylor, catch your breath, Catch your breath. You're gonna faint. Catch your breath. And she said, did you guys have sex after the trance plant? And we said no, no, no, not after no, like you told us, not too after. She's gone, okay, let me just count again. Sean and I trying to breathe and I've just grabbed
Sean's hands. I'm squeezing it for life on my shoulder and I was so scared, like there was not an inch of excitement in me, to be completely honest, like I was just so overwhelmed with fear because I didn't know. This was just so unknown to me, Like I just didn't know what was happening. And to me, instantly, I thought, this pregnancy is scrapped, Like this is not a viable pregnancy. Four babies? What the hell? Like I can't carry four babies? Like am I gonna die? Like I literally thought like
could I die because of this? And so the next part was to go check what was viable and she said, Okay, well, I guess we start this kind of the way we do a twins, and I'll start at the cervix. Looks at the first sack. Yep, there's a baby, and there was a yoke sack in there as well. And then she puts on the sound and it's got the strong, like the strongest heartbeat ever. And oh, it gets emotional because that sound is like you see everybody's videos of
like this heartbeat sound. You're like, oh, that's nice, But then it's the heartbeat that's coming from inside you, and that's your baby, and that's the sound like that you have longed for for so long. We're just wailing like we're balling, and I was like, oh my god, I hadn't even heard the word quadruplet. Like all three of us just stop and go, oh my god. The Scenariopa said she's been doing this for over thirty years and she's never seen it before. She goes, hah, get in
touch with your doctor quick. And the realistic side of it all starts really really becoming quite heavy. You struggle to not let your mind go there about is this viable? Is this safe? Is everything going to be okay? And then we walk out the door and then the weight just crushes me and I'm just in Shawn's arms and We're just trying to get back to the car and I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we don't
even know what to say to each other. We're just not speaking, but we're just we're just in that moment right then and there, and we're just driving along. It's about an hour drive to get home, and we had to stop at Macis because I started getting hungry. I needed a six pack of nuggets asap. And we've gone through McDonald's and I've just said, Sean, what is this?
Like?
We were hoping to get three kids across our lifetime, like, what are we going to do? And on the way home, we pretty much just ended up saying that, Okay, if I'm well and the babies are well, we'll continue with what we have to do. And we're going We're in a very amazing country with an incredible healthcare system, and
we're going to follow the guidance of our doctors. And as much as the baby's health is important, so is mine, and we're going to find this medium between both and keep everybody safe.
I'll never forget the moment when I told my parents that we were pregnant. It happened straight after I found out with Dan, and it was one of the best moments of our life. But the reactions of Taylor's family and friends was utter disbelief.
Yeah, we went home, we told our families, and it was weird. It was how do you tell your family that you're pregnant with quadruplets? Like we just walked in and we just handed them the photo and we're like, we're having quadruplets, and no one believed us, and then they're like, oh my god.
So one of the biggest questions I have about having cords is what was your pregnancy.
Like, yeah, So my pregnancy was actually hey, not much morning sickness, lots of headaches, lots of back pain. I started growing very quickly and my eight week skin I had a bump. By twelve weeks, I've got a belly like it was. It progressed very quickly. The babies all also had their own placentas, so I was growing rapidly. I was having fortnightly appointments down at Raynal Shore. They were doing cervical checks checking on all the babies. These
ultra sounds would go over two hours. Suddenly, on my twenty fourth week appointment, my cervix had dropped drastically and it was because I was pushing myself way too hard. I was just trying to do way too much. It was just silly. So I ended up in hospital. And while I was in hospital, they did like a rested test on me where when I woke up in the morning, I wasn't allowed to move and they wheeled me to this like science lab and they put this big mask on my face and I had to sit still and
just breathe into it for fifteen minutes. And anybody that has been pregnant before like sitting like I was in a wheelchair for fifteen minutes, not moving with a big mask on your face.
I was.
It was ridiculous. But this was all to calculate how much energy I was burning at a rested heart rate, to see how much food I had to eat. So this test ended up telling them that I needed to eat three thousand calories a day. Three thousand calories on a gestational diabetes hospital diet was foul like, and I was in hospital for two months. They're like on a two week menu rotation in the hospital. I had gone through everything it was, and I was so full, Like I was so big at thirty weeks I think I
was measuring it. Fifty two weeks pregnant. I was massive, and my lungs were getting compressed. I couldn't breathe properly because my lungs were so squished. I couldn't eat much because my stomach was getting squished so pretty much. I couldn't have big meals. They were just loading me up on milk, this particular milk they had like in a little cardon, and like crackers and cheese and their fruit, And I was trying my best to eat as much as I could, But I just did what I could.
I soon figured out how to work out uber eats down there, and I'm just quickly going outside for some fresh air and mc donald's would arrive and I'd scoff it down and then walk back in. And I had to keep a close eye with sugars and things like that. But the hospital food got real old, real quick when I was on Yeah, that many calories a day.
So Taylor was in hospital almost two months before her birth, a huge amount of time to be away from home. So how did she keep persanity?
But I just made sure I had a routine. I wasn't on full bed rest. I was still allowed to get up and walk around, so I tried to have a routine of get up, have a shower, make my bed. I bought all my own bedding in the room was very much my room. I had photo frames, I had artwork like, I had my own fan. It was my room.
One of my girlfriends bought me like a really nice haircare routine, so I always get excited for my hair washing days, even though I'd have to sit down to wash my hair cause I'd get so puffed I would do that, I'd go for a walk outside come back in. So in the hospital, the TV was like I think I've seen iPads bigger than the TV that was in my room. I remember the Jilarus were playing, and when my friends plays and the Jilrees and I really wanted
to watch their game. I would just watch Tipping Point like Deal, like all those little shows. I felt like my nan like I had scheduled times to watch TV. I think I read maybe two three books. I wasn't that big of a reader, but sudoku, like I was a Sudoku queen. When Sean would come down and I was like, right, we're having a cop because I knew that I was better than him at sadoku, so I
was like, right, we're versing each other in sadoku. And a lot of you know, Sean and I are very competitive, so any game that came out with a winner, we would be playing that, and the nurses would come in to do my blood pressure and stuff and like, hold on, it's going to be high at the moment because I'm about to smash him in un so, just give us five.
Minutes and come back coming up.
I definitely had some times where it was rough, and I remember just bawling my eyes out, going like I just I'm gassed, Like I'm mentally exhausted. You want to go as far as you can for your babies, and you feel guilty for thinking like I can't keep going anymore.
For those of us who have only ever had one baby in our time is at a time it's not easy to comprehend how they all actually fit in there, Like can you feel each baby individually move?
Yeah? So while I was in the hospital, they were only doing an ultrasound on me once a week and then a full anatomy scan every fortnight. And during the time of having ultrasounds, the way we monitor the babies was all through me. I was in tune with each baby. They all had their own placenta, so they were all in a fixed position, and I could tell when it was baby one, or baby two, baby three, or baby four. And they would just say to me every day, have
you felt baby one, two, three, and four? And I'd go, yep, I can feel yep, yep, yep. They're all doing this, that and the other. I could tell from their movements who was who, and it has transferred across They're very similar now to what they were in the womb. It's very weird. Yeah, I was very in tuned with all of them.
Taylor's resilience and positivity during the epic job of growing four babies is really incredible, but she admits it wasn't always an easy slog. She relied on an excellent support system to get her through.
And I was progressing really well. So our goal was to get me to thirty two weeks. And they even had like a little betting chart in their office about how far do we reckon Taylor's going to get And we all had bets, and I had a white board up in my room and I had like a tally going of how many days I'd get to. And that was what helped me get through a lot too. Was Okay, I need to get to this next mile soon, because the statistics the serious effects that babies can have from
being born early are very very serious. But there's like a turning point at like twenty eight thirty weeks, Like once you get to that milestone, you're coming into a safety area. So I definitely had some times where it was rough. I remember my social worker coming in and just bawling my eyes out, going like I just I'm gassed, like I'm mentally exhausted. You want to go as far as you can for your babies, and you feel guilty
for thinking like I can't keep going anymore. So I was really really battling in my mind some days, and there was days where they would come in and go, how you doing today, and I was just a blubbering mess. So I really had to have a strong support team around me. And Sean was just like, full credit to
the man. He was amazing. He wasn't like I get emotional talking about it because he was like a lot of people talk about my efforts in this pregnancy, but he made just as much of an effort and a sacrifice for our family too, because he was still working
full time. He's a high school teacher, and he continued and after work he'd go home and he was working on renovations in the house, and then he would finish those at like eight o'clock at night, and then drive an hour and a half down to sleep the night on a lounge chair in the hospital, and then would get up at five o'clock and drive back straight into work and do all that every single day for two months.
He didn't skip a day, and the only reason for him to come down on those days was to be my support, Like there was no other purpose for him to be there other than to be my support. So he played a big role in keeping my mental well being positive in that really long time.
So after Taylor got to thirty weeks, D day or Q day loomed, but she still had a definite goal. For a funny reason, my.
Doctor had a holiday booked in just before that, so she's like, Taylor, we're getting you to thirty two weeks.
And so I'm holding on for dear life. But I'm starting to get headaches and starting to get a bit of blurry as my blood pressure is starting to come up, which I had nothing this entire time while I was in there, and the Braxton Hicks was getting hectic, Like my stomach was morphing in all different shapes, and like my stomach would be pushed over to one side and then it'd be pushed and stuck in this other side.
And then I was having like contractions and I was timing them, and doctors were coming down and feeling my belly and they're like, it feels like you having contractions, and like you're telling me like, yeah, it does feel like that. So I'm getting cervical examinations like every night for a few nights and they're not fun. And then it was like, okay, you're looking like you're potentially getting clancier. Yeah. So I was like, look, I want to be proactive.
Let's not wait till something gets bad and do something. The babies are healthy, I'm ready, let's go. Let's get the show on the road. And the nick you needed to have extra staff on. They had done practice rehearsals of the cesarean and there was over forty people in the room that took two hours to go through a practice rehearsal. They had thought of everything. I had got special approved rule to get a photographer in the room,
which I was really excited about. They come in and they're like, all right, Taylor, we've come up with a decision. Let's be proactive, and you're gonna give birth in forty eight hours. And I was like, oh my god, Okay, Like this is what we've been waiting for. I guess this is what I've been in here preparing for. It's going to happen. And the whole time I've just been focused so much on getting further and getting further. I hadn't thought about the birth yet because I was like, no,
I'm not thinking about the birth. I need to just focus on staying pregnant.
So at thirty two weeks pregnant, Taylor readied herself for the biggest day of her life, while the staff at the hospital prepped for a multiple's birth that they hadn't had to attempt since nineteen ninety five. In Part two, you'll hear how Taylor's mind blowing birth went down.
It felt like I was walking down the aisle of my wedding again, Like I come in and everybody is like lining the wall, like everybody's got their back against the wall. Everyone's eyes were just on me, and I was like, oh my god, this is happening.
Plus what the first moments of her bub's lives were like.
And I was a bit worried because I'm like, I'm not really feeling much emotion. Is there something wrong with me? Like I'm not. Everyone talks about like this, like crazy amounts of emotions you feel when you go into birth, and God, I'm not feeling anything. Then they just show one baby and show and I just burst into tears. And we're like, oh my god, there's actually a baby. There's babies in there. This is real.
And what happens when you get four newborn's home.
I came home and there wasn't a toilet in the house. Sean was trying to surprise me with this bathroom, but he thought I was going to be in hospital for so much longer that we had to get a camping toilet out on the deck, like I was postpartum using a camping toilet outside. It was wild, absolutely wild.
But before we hear more of this amazing story, let's check in with our wonderful resident pediatrician, doctor Gollie on just how likely Taylor's story.
Is naturally quads. It's close to one and an it's basically one in eight hundred thousand pregnancies roughly, and then if you're talking identical that's four identical humans. The probability extends out to one in fifteen million. When you compare that to the incidence of twins naturally, it's roughly one
in two hundred and fifty pregnancies. But interestingly, the chances of multiples like twins, it increases with higher maternal age, so it's more common in women over thirty five, but it's also more common if there's a family history of
twins and then there's IVF. So here the chances when it comes to IVF pregnancies, the chances of twins is as high as thirty percent, so almost one in three, and the chances of quads with IVF it's reported differently in different centers, but we're probably in the vicinity of half to one percent.
And why is there a higher chance with IVF pregnancies.
So there are a couple of reasons here. Firstly, traditional older IVF used to transfer multiple embryos in the hope that one of them sticks, so you're logically increasing the chance of more than one implanting. But also before that, there's a lot of ovarian stimulation, and when you have that involved, it means women might ovulate two eggs instead of just one, which increases the chances of die psychotic
non identical twins. But also this usually happens on the background of a longer fertility journey, so we are talking about older women on average, and again, as we mentioned before, that does increase the chance of twinning.
Part two of Taylor's utterly Incredible story is available now wherever you get your podcasts. You won't believe how much weight she lost in the twenty four hours after birth, plus the size of her insane placenta when it was removed. If you're interested in sharing your birth story with us on Diary of a Birth, we'd love to hear from you.
Details are in the show notes. Diary of a Birth was hosted by me Kasanya Lukisch with expert input from doctor Golli, audio production by Scott Stronach, and our executive producer is Georgie Page.
And that's not the end of this incredible story. Just follow the link in the show notes to hear part two. And if you want to hear more of Diary of Birth, make sure
You follow it wherever you get your podcasts.