Doctors Work to Deliver All 5 Rare Preemie Quintuplets Before Midnight for a Reason
The birth of a first baby is always a time filled with excitement and joy. But what if instead of one new life, the expectant mother anticipated five bouncing babies?
Such was the case for a Kentucky couple, Katie and Lucas Schaftlein. At eleven weeks premature, doctors raced the clock to deliver the tiny new infants.
Katie and Lucas had always wanted a big family but had a difficult time conceiving. They opted to go the fertility drug route.
The medications did the trick and before too long, Katie was pregnant. The couple was overjoyed.
“Normally you don’t tell people that you’re pregnant, but as soon as I peed on the stick and got a positive I called everybody,” said Katie.
Quickly into her pregnancy, the doctors realized that there was more than one fetus, but Katie and Lucas never expected five.
At the first ultrasound, they discovered four babies. Then a week later, at another ultrasound, they found a fifth.
Katie immediately began getting ready for her new family. Though they were thrilled with five, they hoped that the next ultrasound would not show six.
Katie was put into the hospital at 22 weeks into her pregnancy. On Nov. 11 at 11:30 p.m., the race to deliver the babies before midnight began.
“This was a very scary time for us,” Katie said. She had several special reasons for wanting all the babies delivered before midnight on that day.
The couple hoped that all five children would be able to share the same birthday. But more special than this was that Nov. 11 was also Katie’s birthday. The day of their delivery, she turned 26.
All babies were born by 11:56 p.m., minutes before midnight. They were delivered by c-section and were healthy.
At 11 weeks early, they were tiny with the smallest being 1 pound, 9 ounces and the biggest 2 pounds, 7 ounces.
The Schaftlein family is now complete with four girls and one boy. Savannah, Sadie, Sofia, Scarlett, and Lucas would remain in the hospital for several weeks before they could be welcomed home.
“Everything was so well planned and everything was so calm,” said Lucas of their experience at the hospital.
Katie also pointed out that, more than being grateful that all babies were born on her special day, she was happy that they were healthy.
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