Joshua and Megan Hulen, from North Dakota (USA), didn’t expect their family to grow so much. The two were already parents to little Jacob, 7, and Matthew, 2, when they decided they would try for one more baby in the hope of having a girl. However, to the couple’s surprise, Megan was pregnant with quintuplets.
The mother was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and had already resorted to fertility treatments and considered intrauterine insemination (IUI). Therefore, the couple was surprised when they discovered that Megan became pregnant with quintuplets through natural ovulation. “We decided to try again to have a daughter and I got pregnant before I even had a chance to start IUI. I started feeling really weird and thought, surely there’s no way I can be pregnant because I never ovulated on my own,” the mother said in an interview to The Sun. “However, the one time I did, we discovered we were pregnant and that was surprise enough. Then we found out we were having five babies and nothing could have prepared us for that.”
Megan had an ultrasound at six weeks and received some sad news. Doctors only heard one of her heartbeats, so it was unlikely that all of her babies would be born. “We came back a week later and saw five heartbeats. I was so shocked! The ultrasound tech was worried he was hurting me because I was shaking and I said, ‘I’m shaking because you told me I’m having five babies.’”
Despite being worried about how she would have five children, Megan said she tried to remain calm. “My youngest son, Matthew, was born with Nager syndrome and we spent about three months in the NICU with him. It was a very difficult time. I couldn’t control anything and what was going to be was going to be. I spent a lot of time worrying “.
During her pregnancy, she realized that having five children was very different from having just one. “When I stood in front of the mirror to put on makeup, I would get out of breath or too tired from holding my weight and would have to sit down. Even half an hour was a long time to stand.”
At 32 weeks, Megan gave birth to the quintuplets via C-section on September 2. “I was very shocked because the babies were born four minutes apart. It was boom boom boom and all the babies were out.” Allison, Adam, Madison, Emma and Chloe came into the world without complications, but as they were born prematurely they spent three weeks in the neonatal ICU.
NEW ROUTINE
Now, the couple is getting used to their new reality of having seven children at home. In the beginning, Megan says that she and her husband stayed awake for almost 24 hours, because it took up to 3 hours for all the babies to breastfeed. “Premature babies take a little longer to eat, so by the time you’ve finished burping and feeding the fifth one, you’ll have about half an hour before you need to start feeding and burping the first one again.
Megan gets up at 3 a.m. to breastfeed and then tries to get some rest before her older children wake up. Then she helps her son Jacob with his homework and prepares Matthew’s medication. Soon after, his “military operation” begins to feed the five babies: “At each feeding, we change their diapers and record their changes and feedings on an app, as well as how much they ate, because with five babies it’s easy to forget who did it. what. Life with quintuplets is chaotic, but it’s good chaos. We are so happy to have everyone under one roof,” Megan said.
