Becoming a mother is one of the most beautiful occasions in any women’s life. And, if you choose to have more than one child, with each new baby, it’s like you’re becoming a new mom all over again! Often, after having a girl, we hope for a boy the second time around or vise versa. Sometimes, we are surprised by twins! More rarely, however, we might fall pregnant with more than 2 babies at one time. Like this couple from Texas, who found out they were having all-girl quintuplets. That’s FIVE baby girls all at once!
The Texan couple decided to try have just one more baby
From IVF and surrogacy to adoption, having a child as a same-sex couple can be challenging. Together for 9 years now, Heather Langley, 39, and her partner Priscilla Rodriguez, 35, have one little girl together. They hoped to give their 3-year-old daughter, Sawyer, a little brother or sister with the help of artificial insemination. Little did they know, they would end up with all-girl quintuplets!
“At first, Priscilla didn’t really want children. But after we had our first daughter, we knew we wanted to try for one more.
We used the IUI method again, the same fertility treatment we used to have Sawyer, although we weren’t able to use the same sperm donor because it wasn’t available. We weren’t sure if it was going to take. But this was our first attempt, and it worked. We were so happy; we couldn’t wait to be parents again.”
Heather Langley
Heather was inseminated. And, when she was 6 weeks pregnant, she was given some wonderful but startling news; She was going to have not one, but five babies – all-girl quintuplets![1]
Thinking back, Heather described how she felt at the moment she found out about her all-girl quintuplets;
“Initially, doctors only saw four gestational sacs, but then they found the fifth one. I immediately felt scared when we found out there was going to be five because I feared my pregnancy would be worrying and complicated.
I was also panicking about how we would take care of five babies and how on earth we would pick and agree on five names, let alone one. However, after the initial shock and the news had sunk in, I realized how special and unique our babies were going to be. It feels like we have won the lottery. I have always wanted children, and I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen for me.”
Heather Langley
Because of Covid-19, Heather had to attend doctor appointments on her own.
This meant that Pricilla was not with her partner when she found out. Heather couldn’t wait and texted her as soon as she could. Of course, Pricilla thought it must be a joke![2]
“She was incredibly shocked and responded to my text saying, “Please tell me this is a joke. She didn’t believe I was being serious at first because you rarely hear of people being pregnant with five babies.
Out of our five babies, we were really hoping we were going to get a couple of boys, but that wasn’t to be”
Heather Langley
They were the 2nd set of all-girl quintuplets to be born in the USA.
As one can imagine, finding out you are having five babies in one go would be incredibly overwhelming. However, it did not take long for Heather and Pricilla to realize what a blessing their babies are.
“At around 19 weeks, we had a scan to find out the gender of the babies. The midwife just kept saying, “another girl.” I couldn’t believe we were going to have five more girls. I just kept thinking, “Wow, that is a lot of girls; what are we going to do with them all?” We would have six in total.
And then when we found out that they were going to be the second-ever set of all-girl quintuplets in the US, we felt so blessed with how rare and extraordinary they were.”
Heather Langley
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however.
Heather was given special medication when she was 28 weeks pregnant. The medication was intended to help mature the babies’ brains because they would definitely be born prematurely. However, the medication actually ended up causing Heather to go into labor.
After trying for two days to prevent the all-girl quintuplets from making an earlier than anticipated entrance, Heather was forced to undergo an emergency C-section. All five of the couple’s babies were born within 3 minutes of one another.
The all-girl quintuplets had to spend their first 3 months of life in the hospital because of being born so early. Baby girl number 1 came home on Halloween, while baby number 5 was finally sent home on the 2nd of December.
They named their five little girls Hadley, Reagan, Zariah, Zylah and Jocelyn.
Life with all-girl quintuplets
“It has been crazy, hectic, and tiring, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our eldest daughter has been nothing but amazing with her sisters; she even calls them her babies. It is so cute.
Everyone in our home town knows them; they love how rare and special they are. We also love seeing people’s reactions when we tell them about our quintuplets, and people come up to us in public because they are so amazed.
I am loving being a mother of six; it is amazing. I am always surrounded by my girls, and there is nothing better than that.”
Heather Langley
Keep Reading: Dad’s heartbreaking post after losing partner to postnatal depression: “Seek help early on”
References
- “Couple welcome quintuplets girls.” Daily Mail. Georgia Simcox. January 26, 2021.
- “Couple who wanted just one more baby welcome set of quintuplets.” Metro. Ellen Scott. January 27, 2021.