Margaret Bodine and her husband Michael thought they would never become parents.
The Arizona couple had been trying to have children for years, but to no avail. After two ᴍɪsᴄᴀʀʀɪᴀɢᴇs, 31-year-old Margaret underwent ʜᴏʀᴍᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴀᴘʏ. In mid-June, she learned the good news from her doctor: she was pregnant and even carrying quintuplets!
The couple moved to Arizona from Virginia to work with Dr. John Elliott, a doctor with extensive experience in multiple pregnancies and deliveries who has delivered more quintuplets than anyone in the world.
“We were crazy with joy, but we were trying to contain ourselves because we knew a lot could go wrong,” says the 34-year-old lawyer.
The pregnancy progressed without much ᴛʀᴏᴜʙʟᴇ, but as the babies grew, the more ʟᴀʙᴏʀᴇᴅ it became for Margaret. Within the first twenty weeks, she had to gain about 40 kilograms of weight to be able to feed the babies – she consumed about 4,500 calories a day.
Fortunately, the children were developing normally, and a few days before Christmas, at 32 weeks pregnant, Ava Louise, Clara Kathryn, Camille ‘Millie’ Whitney, Luke Thomas, and Isabelle Francis saw the light of day, one minute apart, one from the other, by ᴄᴀᴇsᴀʀᴇᴀɴ sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ.
The four little girls and their brother were in great health, but they would need to stay in the ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɴɪᴛʏ ᴡᴀʀᴅ for a few more weeks before they could be discharged.
The babies are the first quintuplets in the history of St. Joseph’s Hospital, and on Christmas days, there was special joy and love while Santa Claus passed by to make wishes in turn.
“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” writes Margaret on her blog…
“The really hard part will start in two weeks when they come home,” says the proud father.