Joanne Wills, 35, from Napier, NZ shares her story with Take 5.
Slumping back onto the couch, I felt exhausted.
During my first pregnancy with my one-year-old son, Peter, I hadn’t had any symptoms in the first trimester.
But this time around, I constantly felt unsettled and queasy – and I was only five weeks along!
“Maybe it’s twins?” I said to my husband, Brett, 40.
“That’d be great,” he said with a grin.
We were excited to be expanding our family, but I was struggling so much that I decided this would be my last pregnancy.
Weeks later, I went in for my first ultrasound while Brett stayed home to look after Peter.
As the technician moved the wand over my stomach, I spotted three little blobs on the screen.
My eyes widened in shock.
Joanne’s pregnancy was much tougher this time around.
(Image: supplied)Are they all babies? I wondered.
“There’s a few in there,” the technician said casually.
Before I could understand what this meant, she moved the wand to reveal another little sac on screen.
“There’s another one,” she told me.
As I tried to fathom this, I asked the technician if she’d ever scanned this many babies before.
“I’ve seen triplets, but never quadruplets,” she replied.
My mind was reeling.
How will I name them all? I wondered, too stunned to think of the logistics of actually raising them.
I was still in shock when I arrived home.
“So, are we having twins?” Brett asked.
“Quadruplets actually,” I revealed.
Esther was the first to be born.
(Image: supplied)“What?” he replied. “No we’re not!”
He was convinced I was joking until I showed him the ultrasound picture.
Then he went a bit quiet.
Brett had quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad after Peter was born, while I’d worked from home in my sales role, but he never expected to be looking after five kids under two!
“We’ll make it work,” I reassured him.
People continued to stare in disbelief when I told them I was having quads.
“So your dog’s having puppies?” my sister, Sarah, asked. I had to laugh.
Once the shock wore off, I felt excited.
I realised how special it was to be having four babies, especially after discovering it’d been almost four years since quadruplets had been born in New Zealand.
Brett and I started rearranging our lives.
Joanne holding Oliver in hospital.
(Image: supplied)Our original plan to have the baby share a room with Peter wasn’t going to work, so we moved my office out of the spare room, which could fit four cots in it, and bought an eight-seater van.
My pregnancy felt like it’d been sped up.
I was already showing at 10 weeks and ballooned significantly each week.
“Most women with quadruplets usually give birth between 29 and 31 weeks,” the doctor said.
At 25 weeks, I finished work so we could temporarily relocate from Napier to Wellington, to be near a hospital equipped for multiple pregnancies.
Luckily, we could stay at the Ronald McDonald House, right next to it.
Carrying quads meant my pregnancy was high risk, but I felt confident my body was coping well.
By 30 weeks though, I was over being pregnant.
My joints ached, my voice was husky from the pressure the babies were putting on my lungs and I waddled to the bathroom five times a night.
The next week, I woke at 2am to discover my waters had broken.
From left: Lucy, Oliver, Esther and Jonathan.
(Image: Amy Jane Photography)“It’s time!” I told Brett.
My mum, Lynette, looked after Peter while Brett and I walked to hospital.
It felt surreal knowing four beautiful babies were about to join our family.
Our daughter, Esther, was the first to be born by caesarean.
At 1.02kg, she was the tiniest.
“She’s beautiful!” I said, catching a quick glimpse of her before nurses whisked her away to the NICU.
I felt both excited and overwhelmed, but Brett reassured me.
“You’re doing great,” he said.
Our other daughter, Lucy, came next, followed by our son, Jonathan – our biggest at 1.65kg – and another boy, Oliver.
I was too sore to see much of the babies that day, but next morning, I visited the NICU so Brett and I could take turns giving them cuddles.
Joanne holding Lucy and Esther, Brett holding Oliver and Jonathan with their son Peter.
(Image: Amy Jane Photography)I’ll never forget feeling their tiny, precious bodies pressed against mine.
The first night we shared with the babies in a hospital room was a harsh welcome to our new life.
We were lucky to sleep 20 minutes at a time without one of them waking us.
“It could be worse,” we’d remind each other, knowing how fortunate we were to have four healthy babies.
After seven weeks, the quads were strong enough to come home.
Peter was too young to fully understand that these four little people were his brothers and sisters, but he’s adjusted really well to having them around and loves giving them cuddles.
Taking care of four newborns has been full-on.
It’s chaos if they all wake at the same time and tricky to keep track of who needs what sometimes.
Has that baby been bathed in the last three days? I’ll often wonder.
Peter loves his four little brothers and sisters.
(Image: supplied)We go through about 30 nappies and do five loads of washing each day.
But Brett and I have found a better rhythm and surprised ourselves with how well we cope on such little sleep.
There have been so many precious moments, especially now the quads are five months old and showing more of their personalities.
They love their floor time together and are starting to smile and notice each other.
We’ve been humbled by how much support we’ve had, too.
People have given us food parcels and baby items, and relatives have offered to stay over to help.
Having quadruplets has been a crazy journey, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Our family is well and truly complete.
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