Speaker 1: You're listening to a.
Speaker 2: Mum and mea podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Cassena Lukicch and this is diary of a birth.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget the day that I found out that
Speaker 3: I was having my first baby. After two years of
Speaker 3: infertility and the constant cycle of two weeks of hope,
Speaker 3: then two weeks of disappointment and anxiety, we got that
Speaker 3: positive pregnancy test and it was one of the most
Speaker 3: incredible days of my life. And if you, like me,
Speaker 3: struggle with falling pregnant, you'll know what a wondrous surprise
Speaker 3: it is to be told that finally you're with child,
Speaker 3: just like today's mum.
Speaker 1: And then she puts on the sound and it's got
Speaker 1: the strong, like the strongest heartbeat ever, and oh gets
Speaker 1: amercial because that sound is like it's the heartbeat that's
Speaker 1: coming from inside you and that's your baby, and that's
Speaker 1: the sound like that you have longed for for so long.
Speaker 1: Where do you whiling? Like we're balley?
Speaker 3: But for the woman telling this birth story, the moment
Speaker 3: was extra surprising, four times as shocking, you might say.
Speaker 1: So she's put the wand on my belly and I've
Speaker 1: seen like multiple like black circles and then she's ripped
Speaker 1: it away and I see like the color drop from
Speaker 1: her face, and I've instantly gone and she's gone. She goes,
Speaker 1: this isn't twins, this is she's what even is is quads?
Speaker 1: Quad quadruplets.
Speaker 3: You won't believe the shocking rollercoaster of emotions she went
Speaker 3: through over an incredible pregnancy.
Speaker 1: I was so scared. There was not an inch of
Speaker 1: excitement in me, to be completely honest, Like I was
Speaker 1: just so overwhelmed with fear because this was just so
Speaker 1: unknown to me. Like I just didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1: Four babies, what the hell? Like I can't carry four babies? Like,
Speaker 1: am I gonna die yet?
Speaker 3: Ready for the most incredible pregnancy story ever?
Speaker 1: At thirty weeks I think I was measuring at fifty
Speaker 1: two weeks pregnant. I was massive and my lungs were
Speaker 1: getting compressed. I couldn't breathe properly because my lungs were
Speaker 1: so squished. I couldn't eat much because my stomach was
Speaker 1: getting squished.
Speaker 3: So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Taylor, and this is the diary
Speaker 1: of my birth with mich quadruplets. Daisy Archie Billy and.
Speaker 3: Charlie Taylor chewed Hope Glacken is nothing short of a superwoman.
Speaker 3: Her story is unbelievable and you're in for such a
Speaker 3: treat just to hear her tell it. But let's start
Speaker 3: back before her life took its crazy turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so life before the Cords was just very usual.
Speaker 1: Sean and I met in high school, being together now
Speaker 1: for over twelve years. We're very local to where we are,
Speaker 1: We're kind of born and raised in this area, and
Speaker 1: we're very family orientated people, so been together for a while,
Speaker 1: got married back in twenty twenty two, host COVID kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and I have always been very full was
Speaker 1: short about wanting to start a family, So that's something
Speaker 1: that we always knew would come. We just didn't know
Speaker 1: that it would come this quick. But yeah, we're very
Speaker 1: sport orientended people, very social. We love our friends, but
Speaker 1: we're also real home people. We love getting around and
Speaker 1: doing DIY and yeah, that was kind of just us
Speaker 1: go around, travel, camping, and things have changed very quickly.
Speaker 3: Taylor had endured a lot of health issues in the past.
Speaker 1: So falling pregnant wasn't what I expected. So back when
Speaker 1: I was in my very very early twenties, I was
Speaker 1: told I had pcos so polcistic ovary syndrome, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of told, do you want to have babies now?
Speaker 1: And I said no, but I do down the future.
Speaker 1: So we kind of just brushed it to the side
Speaker 1: and I just continued on managing my symptoms. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't until we got engaged and I knew that we
Speaker 1: wanted to have babies coming up, and so that's when
Speaker 1: I started preparing my body. Went and see my doctor
Speaker 1: and said, look, this is what's going to be our
Speaker 1: plan for the next few years. Can you help me
Speaker 1: star getting my body ready? So we started doing a
Speaker 1: bit of investigating and it led me very quickly to
Speaker 1: specialists and surprised to me, I had stage four endometriosis.
Speaker 1: So I didn't necessarily have painful periods or the pain
Speaker 1: as such during a mentrual cycle like a lot of
Speaker 1: people explain with the edemitriosis. I had other issues, bower
Speaker 1: issues and pain like that because my ovary was attached
Speaker 1: to my bow with endometriosis. So I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: to have all that removed and keep my ovary intact,
Speaker 1: which was great, And they also seen that, yeah, my
Speaker 1: ovaries were quite enlarged because of the PCOS two. So
Speaker 1: all of that all cleaned up, and they were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you should be really fertile, now go on your way,
Speaker 1: And that most definitely wasn't the case.
Speaker 3: Like so many women, Taylor realized that while she knew
Speaker 3: how babies were made, she didn't really know how to
Speaker 3: fall pregnant.
Speaker 1: Just kept going with trying. Was kind of a bit
Speaker 1: naive in the situation. I was studying to be a
Speaker 1: primary teacher, and I still didn't know that much about
Speaker 1: the female body. Like I just I was really naive.
Speaker 1: It was amazing how much I didn't know. And here
Speaker 1: I am being a woman for what I was twenty
Speaker 1: seven I think at the time, and I didn't even
Speaker 1: know these things on how to get pregnant. But anyways,
Speaker 1: we kept trying and yet didn't work. I was then
Speaker 1: put on it's called electrosol, so it encourages ovulation. Because
Speaker 1: I wasn't ovulating. I wasn't having a period, So I
Speaker 1: was put on medication to enforce a period, to enforce ovulation,
Speaker 1: and still nothing was happening, no ovulation. I got put
Speaker 1: to a fertility specialist. She goes, You're not getting pregnant
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form on this medication at
Speaker 1: the moment. So in order to get me just to ovulate,
Speaker 1: she had to triple my dose for double the time
Speaker 1: with this lectrosol, and we're tracking, I was getting blood
Speaker 1: test tracking when I'm ovulating. Here we are trying to
Speaker 1: have sex every second day, Like it's just ridiculous. It
Speaker 1: just makes everything feel so procedural, and it just takes
Speaker 1: the fine out of everything, and it's just not the
Speaker 1: way that you plan to get pregnant. It takes a
Speaker 1: surprise out of it, it takes the joy out of Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just made everything feel really medical. But that's what
Speaker 1: we had to do, and so be it. We'll do it.
Speaker 3: After a year of tracking ovulation and not falling pregnant,
Speaker 3: Taylor's next step was IVF, but the doctors warned her
Speaker 3: that it wasn't going to be straightforward for her.
Speaker 1: So my ovar is with chocolate block with follicles, which
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's great. Doesn't that mean I
Speaker 1: have this really high chance? But how she explained it
Speaker 1: to me was they're so full. Nothing can reach its
Speaker 1: full maturity inside your ovaries, and so you have these
Speaker 1: really immature follicles. But with IVF, their job is to
Speaker 1: stimulate those follicles and then they give you this drug
Speaker 1: that gets you to release those follicles. And naturally you
Speaker 1: only normally release one or two follicles here and there.
Speaker 1: But here I am with chocol block ovaries. I think
Speaker 1: there's upwards of maybe even sixty and per ovary there
Speaker 1: was a stupid number. So I was given like a
Speaker 1: really really low dose. And it came to the collection
Speaker 1: phase and I remember them going, Taylor, did you hear
Speaker 1: that we've got your first egg? Got your first egg?
Speaker 1: And then the rest was a blur. I remember them
Speaker 1: coming in and saying, Taylor, we got thirty and I
Speaker 1: was like, thirty eggs? What like? I know friends and
Speaker 1: family that have had IVF and they're getting four. I'm
Speaker 1: long thirty.
Speaker 3: Five days after Taylor's collection, an incredible fourteen embryos had
Speaker 3: survived to the blastocyst stage, but then she fell ill
Speaker 3: and was hospitalized with ovarian hyperstimulation, which took a few
Speaker 3: months to recover from, meaning a delay in transferring any
Speaker 3: of the embryos into her. So remember that Taylor was
Speaker 3: still on letrosol at this stage, as her PCOS meant
Speaker 3: she didn't naturally ovulate, but she was three months off
Speaker 3: the IVF stimulation. Finally, three months after the retrieval date,
Speaker 3: it was time to implant the most viable embryo.
Speaker 1: When you're going for your transfer, you have regular blood
Speaker 1: tests to catch when you're ovulating, so as soon as
Speaker 1: you're ovulate five days later, you must have that transfer.
Speaker 1: And they need to catch that ovulation window very carefully,
Speaker 1: and we go for the embryo transfer. It's just a
Speaker 1: wild experience. I was just reading through my journal notes
Speaker 1: about it. And you work so hard for this day,
Speaker 1: and you think about getting pregnant, and you work so
Speaker 1: hard to get these eggs and get them to blastises,
Speaker 1: to get them to be an embryo, and you go
Speaker 1: in for this transfer appointment and it's five minutes. It's
Speaker 1: done and dusted. It's just like you're going in to
Speaker 1: get your eyebrows done. To these ladies, they're just so
Speaker 1: good at it. They're like, we've picked out your embryo
Speaker 1: number five. Here it is, we're about to transfer. It's
Speaker 1: just one embryo. It's just one embryo. And so they
Speaker 1: transfer it. We see the little light flash those that do.
Speaker 1: If no, apparently you look for the flash on the
Speaker 1: ultrasound machine. It's apparently a telltale signed to see if
Speaker 1: the embryo has gone through. And they're like, okay, if
Speaker 1: you go, we'll give you a call in two weeks
Speaker 1: to let you know if that's happened. So then you
Speaker 1: go on this two week dreaded weight. It is the
Speaker 1: longest two weeks of your life. Like, as soon as
Speaker 1: you walk out that appointment, first of all, you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to poo because you're scared youre going
Speaker 1: to push this little embryo out. But they're like, don't worry,
Speaker 1: it won't happen. It's not going to fall out. But
Speaker 1: you're walking around with your legs held tired, like something's
Speaker 1: going to fall out of you. But yeah, two weeks
Speaker 1: we waited and it was so so stressful. But I
Speaker 1: instantly felt my boobs were getting bigger. I was feeling
Speaker 1: a bit different, but I was way too scared to
Speaker 1: verbalize any of this because I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: any bad voodoo out there. I just was, okay, let's
Speaker 1: just pray to the gods because statistically, your first embryo
Speaker 1: transferred nomally, isn't that successful.
Speaker 3: As someone who's gone through IVF, let me tell you,
Speaker 3: the waiting periods are absolute torture. It is a constant cycle.
Speaker 3: It's two weeks of hope excitement. It's did this injection work?
Speaker 3: It's my eggs in the right place. Is my body
Speaker 3: doing the right thing? Are my hormones doing the right thing?
Speaker 3: You feel like a pincushion. Waiting for phone calls from
Speaker 3: embryologists is another certain kind of hell because you're constantly
Speaker 3: waiting for.
Speaker 1: The phone call.
Speaker 3: You're staring at your phone waiting to see what's happening,
Speaker 3: and you do not want to miss that phone call.
Speaker 3: It is excruciating. The day that Taylor was due to
Speaker 3: receive her blood test results, the call came through at
Speaker 3: eleven am, but she torturously left the voicemail unheard so
Speaker 3: she could get the news with Sean that evening.
Speaker 1: Before we listen to it, we both say, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: if this doesn't work, and we're pretty sure it hasn't worked,
Speaker 1: because we're looking at statistics here, we have another thirteen goes.
Speaker 1: This isn't give up stage. We need to stay positive
Speaker 1: in this journey because this journey can go on for
Speaker 1: quite a long time. And anyways, we press play and
Speaker 1: she says, congratulations still makes me so emotional because that's
Speaker 1: the day you're hope and you pray for and oh,
Speaker 1: like we had wished of that day for so long
Speaker 1: and it was there and we were just like, oh,
Speaker 1: we just couldn't grasp what was happening around us, and
Speaker 1: we just held each other for so long and we
Speaker 1: were just like, oh my god, like it's happened. We're pregnant.
Speaker 1: At that point, we're going, oh my god, we're pregnant
Speaker 1: with one baby, and gosh, things.
Speaker 3: Changed coming up.
Speaker 1: And then we walk out the door and then the
Speaker 1: weight just crushes me and I'm just in Shan's arms
Speaker 1: and we're just trying to get back to the car
Speaker 1: and I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we
Speaker 1: don't even know what to say to each other.
Speaker 3: Every mum waits with baited breath for the all important
Speaker 3: dating scan, when you find out how many weeks pregnant
Speaker 3: you're measuring and the approximate date that you'll be blowing
Speaker 3: out those birthday candles each year. It may be the
Speaker 3: day you see their first tiny wriggly arms and hear
Speaker 3: their strong, healthy heartbeats. Eight weeks later, Taylor and Sean
Speaker 3: returned to their IVF clinic to have their scan, and
Speaker 3: Taylor's account of finding out just how many bubs were
Speaker 3: in her stomach is stunningly vulnerable and honest.
Speaker 1: As much as it's incredible. I need to be honest
Speaker 1: about how I felt in that situation because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of emotions that come with this. So we're waiting
Speaker 1: in the waiting room and aha, imagine if it's twins,
Speaker 1: La la. So we go in, we sit down, We're
Speaker 1: in a room, Sean's beside me, We've got masks on,
Speaker 1: and there's a big TV in front of us, and
Speaker 1: the sonographers are my right, Sean's on my left shoulder,
Speaker 1: and she's lovely. And I've seen a fair few ultra
Speaker 1: sounds in my times with my pcos and my endometriosis
Speaker 1: and getting ready to have this baby, so I kind
Speaker 1: of have gotten a grasp about what a belly should
Speaker 1: look like on an ultrasow machine. Sean doesn't know what
Speaker 1: he's looking at it. He could be looking at a
Speaker 1: PlayStation screen for early noson And so she's put the
Speaker 1: wand on my belly and I've seen like multiple like
Speaker 1: black circles, and then she's ripped it away and i
Speaker 1: see like the color drop from her face and I've
Speaker 1: instantly gone and she's gone. Sean's going, why is everyone?
Speaker 1: And like what's going on here? Like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say things, nothing's really coming out. And she just put
Speaker 1: her hand on my leg and she said, Taylor, you
Speaker 1: have multiple pregnancies in here. I have to count to
Speaker 1: know how many you have in here. I can't even
Speaker 1: like fear. It was just fear. And so she's started
Speaker 1: counting and she's put the warmth on. She's gone, okay, one,
Speaker 1: all right, two, and I'm like, holy crap. And she's
Speaker 1: gone three and I'm like, oh my god. Three, and
Speaker 1: then she's gone four. Oh, oh my god. For I'm
Speaker 1: instantly hysterical, like I can't breathe. I'm like I could
Speaker 1: feel my heart coming out of my chest. I like
Speaker 1: was trying to hold back that big like cry, like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to regulate my breathing. And I remember like
Speaker 1: consciously thinking, Taylor, catch your breath, catch your breath. You're
Speaker 1: gonna faint. Catch your breath, And she said did you
Speaker 1: guys have sex after the trance plant? And we said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: not after no, like you told us not too after.
Speaker 1: She's gone, okay, let me just count again. Sean and
Speaker 1: I trying to breathe, and I've just grabbed Sean's hands.
Speaker 1: I'm squeezing it for life on my shoulder, and I
Speaker 1: was so scared, like there was not an inch of
Speaker 1: excitement in me, to be completely honest, like I was
Speaker 1: just so overwhelmed with fear because I didn't know. This
Speaker 1: was just so unknown to me, Like I just didn't
Speaker 1: know what was happening. And to me, instantly, I thought,
Speaker 1: this pregnancy is scrapped, Like this is not a viable pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Four babies? What the hell? Like I can't carry four babies?
Speaker 1: Like am I gonna die? Like I literally thought, like
Speaker 1: could I die because of this? And so the next
Speaker 1: part was to go check what was viable and she said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we start this kind of the way we
Speaker 1: do a twins, and I'll start at the cervix. Looks
Speaker 1: at the first sack. Yep, there's a baby, and there
Speaker 1: was a yoke sack in there as well, and then
Speaker 1: she puts on the sound, and it's got the strong,
Speaker 1: like the strongest heartbeat ever. And oh, I gets emotional
Speaker 1: because that sound is like you see everybody's videos of
Speaker 1: like this heartbeat sound. You're like, oh, that's nice. But
Speaker 1: then it's the heartbeat that's coming from inside you, and
Speaker 1: that's your baby, and that's the sound like that you
Speaker 1: have longed for for so long. We're just wailing, like
Speaker 1: we're balling, and I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: hadn't even heard the word quadruplet. Like all three of
Speaker 1: us just stop and go, oh my god. The scenario
Speaker 1: has said she's been doing this for over thirty years
Speaker 1: and she's never seen it before. She goes get in
Speaker 1: touch with your doctor quick, and the realistic side of
Speaker 1: it all starts really really becoming quite heavy. Yeah, struggle
Speaker 1: to not let your mind go there about yeah, is
Speaker 1: this Bible? Is this safe? Is everything going to be okay?
Speaker 1: And then we walk out the door and then the
Speaker 1: weight just crushes me and I'm just in Shawn's arms
Speaker 1: and We're just trying to get back to the car
Speaker 1: and I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we
Speaker 1: don't even know what to say to each other. We're
Speaker 1: just not speaking, but we're just we're just in that
Speaker 1: moment right then and there, and we're just driving along.
Speaker 1: It's about an hour drive to get home, and we
Speaker 1: had to stop at Macis because I started getting hungry.
Speaker 1: I needed a six pack of nuggets asap. And we've
Speaker 1: gone through mc donald's and I've just said, Sean, what
Speaker 1: what is this? Like we were hoping to get three
Speaker 1: kids across our lifetime, Like what are we going to do?
Speaker 1: And on the way home, we pretty much just ended
Speaker 1: up saying that, Okay, if I'm well and the babies
Speaker 1: are well, we'll continue with what we have to do.
Speaker 1: And we're in a very amazing country with an incredible
Speaker 1: healthcare system, and we're going to follow the guidance of
Speaker 1: our doctors. And as much as the baby's health is important,
Speaker 1: so is mine, and we're going to find this medium
Speaker 1: between both and keep everybody safe.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget the moment when I told my parents
Speaker 3: that we were pregnant. It happened straight after I found
Speaker 3: out with Dan, and it was one of the best
Speaker 3: moments of our life. But the reactions of Taylor's family
Speaker 3: and friends was utter disbelief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we went home, we told our families, and it
Speaker 1: was weird. It was how do you tell your family
Speaker 1: that you're pregnant with gudrufless, Like we just walked in
Speaker 1: and we just handed them the photo and we're like,
Speaker 1: we're having quadruplets, and no one believed us, and then
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: So one of the biggest questions I have about having
Speaker 3: CORDS is what was your pregnancy Like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so my pregnancy was actually okay. Not much morning sickness,
Speaker 1: lots of headaches, lots of back pain. I started growing
Speaker 1: very quickly and my eight weeks skin, I had a bump.
Speaker 1: By twelve weeks, I've got a belly like it was.
Speaker 1: It progressed very quickly. The babies all also had their
Speaker 1: own placentas, so I was growing rapidly. I was having
Speaker 1: fortnightly appointments down at Rawal Nor Shore. They were doing
Speaker 1: cervical checks, checking on all the babies. These ultra sounds
Speaker 1: would go over two hours. Suddenly, on my twenty fourth
Speaker 1: week appointment, my cervix had dropped drastically and it was
Speaker 1: because I was pushing myself way too hard. I was
Speaker 1: just trying to do way too much. It was just silly.
Speaker 1: So I ended up in hospital. And while I was
Speaker 1: in hospital, they did like a rested test on me,
Speaker 1: where when I woke up in the morning, I wasn't
Speaker 1: allowed to move and they wheeled me to this science
Speaker 1: lab and they put this big mask on my face
Speaker 1: and I had to sit still and just breathe into
Speaker 1: it for fifteen minutes. And anybody that's been pregnant before
Speaker 1: like sitting like I was in a wheelchair for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: not moving with a big mask on your face. I was.
Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. But this was all to calculate how
Speaker 1: much energy I was burning at a rested heart rate,
Speaker 1: to see how much food I had to eat. So
Speaker 1: this test ended up telling them that I needed to
Speaker 1: eat three thousand calories a day, three thousand calories on
Speaker 1: a gestational diabetes. Hospital diet was foul like, and I
Speaker 1: was in hospital for two months. They're like on a
Speaker 1: two week menu rotation. In the hospital, I'd gone through
Speaker 1: everything it was, and I was so full, Like I
Speaker 1: was so big at thirty weeks I think I was
Speaker 1: measuring it. Fifty two weeks pregnant, I was massive and
Speaker 1: my lungs were getting compressed. I couldn't breathe properly because
Speaker 1: my lungs were so squished. I couldn't eat much because
Speaker 1: my stomach was getting squished so pretty much. I couldn't
Speaker 1: have big meals. They were just loading me up on milk,
Speaker 1: this particular milk they had like in a little carden,
Speaker 1: and like crackers and cheese and their fruit, and I
Speaker 1: was trying my best to eat as much as I could.
Speaker 1: But I just did what I could. I soon figured
Speaker 1: out how to work out uber eats down there, and
Speaker 1: I'm just quickly going outside for some fresh air and
Speaker 1: McDonald's would arrive and I'd scoff it down and then
Speaker 1: walk back in and had to keep a close eye
Speaker 1: im with sugars and things like that. But the hospital
Speaker 1: food got real old, real quick. When I was on Yeah,
Speaker 1: that many calories a day.
Speaker 3: So Taylor was in hospital almost two months before her birth,
Speaker 3: a huge amount of time to be away from home.
Speaker 3: So how did she keep her sanity?
Speaker 1: But I just made sure I had a routine. I
Speaker 1: wasn't on full bed rest. I was still allowed to
Speaker 1: get up and walk around, so I tried to have
Speaker 1: a routine of get up, have a shower, make my bed.
Speaker 1: I bought all my own bedding in the room was
Speaker 1: very much my room. I had photo frames, I had
Speaker 1: artwork like, I had my own fan. It was my room.
Speaker 1: One of my girlfriends bought me like a really nice
Speaker 1: haircare routine, so I always get excited for my hair
Speaker 1: washing days. Even though i'd have to sit down to
Speaker 1: wash my hair cau, I'd get so puffed I would
Speaker 1: do that, I'd go for a walk outside, come back in.
Speaker 1: So in the hospital, the TV was like I think
Speaker 1: I've seen iPads bigger than the TV that was in
Speaker 1: my room. I remember the Jilarus were playing, and when
Speaker 1: my friends plays in the Deilies and I really wanted
Speaker 1: to watch their game. I would just watch Tipping Point
Speaker 1: like Deal, like all those little shows. I felt like
Speaker 1: my nan like I had scheduled times to watch TV.
Speaker 1: I think I read maybe two three books. I wasn't
Speaker 1: that big of a reader, but sudoku, like I was
Speaker 1: a Sudoku queen. When Sean would come down and I
Speaker 1: was like, right, we're having a cop because I knew
Speaker 1: that I was better than him at sadoaku, so I
Speaker 1: was like, right, we're versing each other in sadoku. And
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Sean and I are very competitive,
Speaker 1: so any game that came out with the winner, we
Speaker 1: would be playing that, and the nurses would come in
Speaker 1: to do my blood pressure and stuff and like, hold on,
Speaker 1: it's going to be high at the moment because I'm
Speaker 1: about to smash him in, you know, So just give us.
Speaker 3: Five minutes and come back coming up.
Speaker 1: I definitely had some times where it was rough, and
Speaker 1: I remember just bawling my eyes out, going like I
Speaker 1: just I'm gassed, Like I'm mentally exhausted. You want to
Speaker 1: go as far as you can for your babies, and
Speaker 1: you feel guilty for thinking like I can't keep going anymore.
Speaker 3: For those of us who have only ever had one
Speaker 3: baby in our time is at a time it's not
Speaker 3: easy to comprehend how they all actually fit in there,
Speaker 3: Like can you feel each baby individually move?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So while I was in the hospital, they were
Speaker 1: only doing an ultrasound on me once a week and
Speaker 1: then a full anatomy scan every fortnight. And during the
Speaker 1: time of having ultrasounds, the way we monitor the baityabies
Speaker 1: was all through me. I was in tune with each baby.
Speaker 1: They all had their own placenta, so they were all
Speaker 1: in a fixed position, and I could tell when it
Speaker 1: was baby one or baby two, baby three, or baby four.
Speaker 1: And they would just say to me every day, have
Speaker 1: you felt baby one, two, three, and four? And I'd go, yep,
Speaker 1: I can feel yep, yep, yep. They're all doing this,
Speaker 1: that and the other. I could tell from their movements
Speaker 1: who was who, and it has transferred across. They're very
Speaker 1: similar now to what they were in the womb. It's
Speaker 1: very weird. Yeah, I was very in tune with all
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 3: Tailor's resilience and positivity during the epic job of growing
Speaker 3: four babies is really incredible, but she admits it wasn't
Speaker 3: always an easiestlog. She relied on an excellent support system
Speaker 3: to get her through.
Speaker 1: And I was progressing really well. So our goal was
Speaker 1: to get me to thirty two weeks. And they even
Speaker 1: had like a little betting chart in their office about
Speaker 1: how far do we reckon Taylor was going to get
Speaker 1: and we all had bets, and I had a white
Speaker 1: board up in my room and I had like a
Speaker 1: tally going of how many days I'd get to And
Speaker 1: that was what helped me get through a lot too.
Speaker 1: Was Okay, I need to get to this next milestone,
Speaker 1: because the statistics the serious effects that babies can have
Speaker 1: from being born early are very very serious. But there's
Speaker 1: like a turning point at like twenty eight thirty weeks,
Speaker 1: like once you get to that milestone, you're coming into
Speaker 1: a safety area. So I definitely had some times where
Speaker 1: it was rough. I remember my social worker coming in
Speaker 1: and just bawling my eyes out, going like I just
Speaker 1: I'm gassed, Like I'm mentally exhausted. You want to go
Speaker 1: as far as you can for your babies, and you
Speaker 1: feel guilty for thinking like I can't keep going anymore.
Speaker 1: So I was really really battling in my mind some days,
Speaker 1: and there was days where they would come in and go,
Speaker 1: how you doing today, And I was just a blubbering mess.
Speaker 1: So I really had to have a strong support team
Speaker 1: around me. And Sean was just like, full credit to
Speaker 1: the man. He was amazing. He wasn't like I get
Speaker 1: emotional talking about it because he was like a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about my efforts in this pregnancy, but
Speaker 1: he made just as much of an effort and a
Speaker 1: sacrifice for our family too, because he was still working
Speaker 1: full time. He's a high school teacher and he continued working,
Speaker 1: and after work he'd go home and he was working
Speaker 1: on renovations on the house, and then he would finish
Speaker 1: those at like eight o'clock at night and then drive
Speaker 1: an hour and a half down to sleep the night
Speaker 1: on a lounge chair in the hospital, and then would
Speaker 1: get up at five o'clock and drive back straight into
Speaker 1: work and do all that every single day for two months.
Speaker 1: He didn't skip a day, And the only reason for
Speaker 1: him to come down on those days was to be
Speaker 1: my support, Like there was no other purpose for him
Speaker 1: to be there other than to be my support. So
Speaker 1: he played a big role in keeping my mental well
Speaker 1: being positive in that really long time.
Speaker 3: So after Taylor got to thirty weeks, D day or
Speaker 3: Q day loomed, but she still had a definite goal.
Speaker 3: For a funny reason, my.
Speaker 1: Doctor had a holiday booked in just before that, so
Speaker 1: she's like, Taylor, we're getting you to thirty two weeks,
Speaker 1: and so I'm holding on for dear life. But I'm
Speaker 1: starting to get headaches and starting to get a bit
Speaker 1: of blurry. So my blood pressure is starting to come up,
Speaker 1: which I had nothing this entire time while I was
Speaker 1: in there, and the Braxton Hicks was getting hectic, like
Speaker 1: my stomach was morphing in all different shapes, and like
Speaker 1: my stomach would be pushed over to one side and
Speaker 1: then it'd be pushed and stuck in this other side.
Speaker 1: And then I was having like contractions and I was
Speaker 1: timing them, and doctors were coming down and feeling my
Speaker 1: belly and they're like, it feels like you having contractions,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you're telling me, like, yeah, it does
Speaker 1: feel like that. So I'm getting cervical examinations like every
Speaker 1: night for a few nights, and they're not fun. And
Speaker 1: then it was like, okay, you're looking like you're potentially
Speaker 1: getting clancier. Yeah. So I was like, look, I want
Speaker 1: to be proactive. Let's not wait till something gets bad
Speaker 1: and do something the baby's health. I'm ready, let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's get the show on the road. And the nick
Speaker 1: you needed to have extra staff on. They had done
Speaker 1: practice rehearsals of the cesarean and there was over forty
Speaker 1: people in the room. There took two hours to go
Speaker 1: through a practice rehearsal. They had thought of everything. I
Speaker 1: had got special approval to get a photographer in the room,
Speaker 1: which I was really excited about. They come in and
Speaker 1: they're like, all right, Taylor, we've come up with a decision.
Speaker 1: Let's be proactive, and you're gonna give birth in forty
Speaker 1: eight hours. And I was like, oh my god, okay,
Speaker 1: like this is what we've been waiting for. I guess
Speaker 1: this is what I've been in here preparing for. It's
Speaker 1: going to happen. And the whole time, I've just been
Speaker 1: focused so much on getting further and getting further. I
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about the birth yet because I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking about the birth. I need to just
Speaker 1: focus on staying pregnant.
Speaker 3: So at thirty two weeks pregnant, Taylor readied herself for
Speaker 3: the biggest day of her life while the stuff at
Speaker 3: the hospital prepped for a multiple's birth that they hadn't
Speaker 3: had to attempt since nine teen ninety five. In Part two,
Speaker 3: you'll hear how Taylor's mind blowing birth went down.
Speaker 1: It felt like I was walking down the aisle of
Speaker 1: my wedding again, Like I come in and everybody is
Speaker 1: like lining the wall, like everybody's got their back against
Speaker 1: the wall. Everyone's eyes were just on me, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, this is happening.
Speaker 3: Plus what the first moments of her bub's lives were like.
Speaker 1: And I was a bit worried because I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: not really feeling much emotion. Is there something wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Like I'm not. Everyone's talks about like this, like crazy
Speaker 1: amounts of motions you feel when you go into birth.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not feeling anything. Then they just show one baby,
Speaker 1: and Sean and I just burst into tears and we're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, there's actually a baby. There's babies in there.
Speaker 1: This is real.
Speaker 3: And what happens when you get four newborn's home.
Speaker 1: I came home and there wasn't a toilet in the house.
Speaker 1: Sean was trying to surprise me with this bathroom, but
Speaker 1: he thought I was going to be in hospital for
Speaker 1: so much longer that we had to get a camping
Speaker 1: toilet out on the deck, like I was postpartum using
Speaker 1: a camping toilet outside. It was wild, absolutely wild.
Speaker 3: But before we hear more of this amazing story, let's
Speaker 3: check in with our wonderful resident pediatrician, doctor Golli on
Speaker 3: just how likely Taylor's story.
Speaker 2: Is naturally quads. It's close to one in a million.
Speaker 2: It's basically one in eight hundred thousand pregnancies roughly, and
Speaker 2: then if you're talking identical, that's four identical humans. The
Speaker 2: probability extends out to one in fifteen million. When you
Speaker 2: compare that to the incidence of twins naturally, it's roughly
Speaker 2: one in two hundred and fifty pregnancies. But interestingly, the
Speaker 2: chances of multiples like twins, it increases with higher maternal age,
Speaker 2: so it's more common in women over thirty five, but
Speaker 2: it's also more common if there's a family history of twins.
Speaker 2: And then there's IVF, So here the chances when it
Speaker 2: comes to IVF pregnancies, the chances of twins is as
Speaker 2: high as thirty percent, so almost one in three, and
Speaker 2: the chances of quads with IVF it border differently in
Speaker 2: different centers, but we're probably in the vicinity of half
Speaker 2: to one percent.
Speaker 3: And why is there a higher chance with IVF pregnancies?
Speaker 2: So there are a couple of reasons here. Firstly, traditional
Speaker 2: older IVF used to transfer multiple embryos in the hope
Speaker 2: that one of them sticks, so you're logically increasing the
Speaker 2: chance of more than one implanting. But also before that,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of ovarian stimulation and when you have
Speaker 2: that involved, it means women might ovulate two eggs instead
Speaker 2: of just one, which increases the chances of die zygotic
Speaker 2: non identical twins. But also this usually happens on the
Speaker 2: background of a longer fertility journey, so we are talking
Speaker 2: about older women on average, and again, as we mentioned before,
Speaker 2: that does increase the chance of twinning.
Speaker 3: Part two of Taylor's utterly incredible story is available now
Speaker 3: wherever you get your podcasts. You won't believe how much
Speaker 3: weight she lost in the twenty four hours after birth,
Speaker 3: plus the size of her insane placenta when it was removed.
Speaker 3: If you're interested in sharing your birth story with us
Speaker 3: on Diary of a Birth, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Details are in the show notes. Diary of a Birth
Speaker 3: was hosted by me Kasanya Lukitch with expert input from
Speaker 3: doctor Golly, Audio production by Scott Stronach, and our executive
Speaker 3: producer is Georgie Page. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners
Speaker 3: of the land. We have recorded this podcast on the
Speaker 3: Gadigul people of the Eor nation. We pay our respects
Speaker 3: to their elders past and present, and extend that respect
Speaker 3: to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.