Speaker 1: I'm Kissena Lukic, and this is diary of a birth.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the day that I found out that
Speaker 1: I was having my first baby.
Speaker 2: After two years of infertility.
Speaker 1: And the constant cycle of two weeks of hope, then
Speaker 1: two weeks of disappointment and anxiety, we got that positive
Speaker 1: pregnancy test and it was one of the most incredible
Speaker 1: days of my life. And if you, like me, struggle
Speaker 1: with falling pregnant, you'll know what a wondrous surprise it
Speaker 1: is to be told that finally you're with child, just
Speaker 1: like today's mum.
Speaker 3: And then she puts on the sound and it's got
Speaker 3: the strong, like the strongest heartbeat ever, and oh, I
Speaker 3: gets amercial because that sound is like it's the heartbeat
Speaker 3: that's coming from inside you, and that's your baby, and
Speaker 3: that's the sound like that you have longed for for
Speaker 3: so long. We're just wailing like we're balley.
Speaker 1: But for the woman telling this birth story, the moment
Speaker 1: was extra surprising.
Speaker 2: Four times as shocking, you might say.
Speaker 3: So she's put the wand on my belly and I've
Speaker 3: seen like multiple like black circles, and then she's ripped
Speaker 3: it away and I see like the color drop from
Speaker 3: her face and I've instantly gone and she's gone. She goes,
Speaker 3: this isn't twins, this is she's what even is? Is quads?
Speaker 3: Quad quadruplets.
Speaker 1: You won't believe the shocking rollercoaster of emotions she went
Speaker 1: through over an incredible pregnancy.
Speaker 3: I was so scared. There was not an inch of
Speaker 3: excitement in me, to be completely honest, Like I was
Speaker 3: just so overwhelmed with fear because this was just so
Speaker 3: unknown to me, Like I just didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 3: Four babies, what the hell? Like I can't carry four babies?
Speaker 3: Like am I gonna die? Yet?
Speaker 1: Ready for the most incredible pregnancy story ever.
Speaker 3: At thirty weeks I think I was measuring it. Fifty
Speaker 3: two weeks pregnant, I was massive and my lungs were
Speaker 3: getting compressed. I couldn't breathe proper because my lungs were
Speaker 3: so squished. I couldn't eat much because my stomach was
Speaker 3: getting squished.
Speaker 2: So let's meet today's mum.
Speaker 3: Hi, my name is Taylor, and this is the diary
Speaker 3: of my birth with michauadruplets Daisy, Archie, Billy, and Charlie.
Speaker 1: Taylor chewed hope Glacken is nothing short of a superwoman.
Speaker 1: Her story is unbelievable and you're in for such a
Speaker 1: treat just to hear her tell it. But let's start
Speaker 1: back before her life took its crazy turn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so life before the Cords was just very usual.
Speaker 3: Sean and I met in high school, being together now
Speaker 3: for over twelve years. We're very local to where we are,
Speaker 3: We're kind of born and raised in this area, and
Speaker 3: we're very family orientated people, so been together for a while,
Speaker 3: got married back in twenty twenty two, host COVID kind
Speaker 3: of thing, and I have always been very full was
Speaker 3: short about wanting to start a family, So that's something
Speaker 3: that we always knew would come. We just didn't know
Speaker 3: that it would come this quick. But yeah, we're very
Speaker 3: sport oriententended people, very social. We love our friends, but
Speaker 3: we're also real home people. We love getting around and
Speaker 3: doing DIY and yeah, that was kind of just us
Speaker 3: go around, travel camping, and things have changed very quickly.
Speaker 1: Taylor had endured a lot of health issues in the past.
Speaker 3: So falling pregnant wasn't what I expected. So back when
Speaker 3: I was in my very very early twenties, I was
Speaker 3: told I had pcos so polcistic ovary syndrome, and I
Speaker 3: was kind of told, do you want to have babies now?
Speaker 3: And I said no, but I do down the future.
Speaker 3: So we kind of just brushed it to the side
Speaker 3: and I just continued on managing my symptoms. But it
Speaker 3: wasn't until we got engaged and I knew that we
Speaker 3: wanted to have babies coming up, and so that's when
Speaker 3: I started preparing my body. Went and seeing my doctor
Speaker 3: and said, look, this is what's going to be our
Speaker 3: plan for the next few years. Can you help me
Speaker 3: start getting my body ready. So we started doing a
Speaker 3: bit of investigating and it led me very quickly to
Speaker 3: specialists and surprised to me, I had stage four endometriosis.
Speaker 3: So I didn't necessarily have painful periods or the pain
Speaker 3: as such during a mentrual cycle like a lot of
Speaker 3: people explain with the edemitriosis. I had other issues, bower
Speaker 3: issues and pain like that because my ovary was attached
Speaker 3: to my bow with endemetriosis. So I was lucky enough
Speaker 3: to have all that removed and keep my ovary intact,
Speaker 3: which was great. And they also seen that, yeah, my
Speaker 3: ovaries were quite enlarged because of the PCOS two. So
Speaker 3: all of that all cleaned up and they were like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you should be really fertile, now go on your way,
Speaker 3: And that most definitely wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: Like so many women, Taylor realized that while she knew
Speaker 1: how babies were made, she didn't really know how to
Speaker 1: fall pregnant.
Speaker 3: Just kept going with trying. Was kind of a bit
Speaker 3: naive in the situation. I was studying to be a
Speaker 3: primary teacher and I still didn't know that much about
Speaker 3: the female bod, Like I just I was really naive.
Speaker 3: It was amazing how much I didn't know. And here
Speaker 3: I am being a woman for what I was twenty
Speaker 3: seven I think at the time, and I didn't even
Speaker 3: know these things on how to get pregnant. But anyways,
Speaker 3: we kept trying, and yeah, didn't work. I was then
Speaker 3: put on it's called lectrosol, so it encourages ovulation. Because
Speaker 3: I wasn't ovulating. I wasn't having a period, So I
Speaker 3: was put on medication to enforce a period, to enforce ovulation,
Speaker 3: and still nothing was happening, no ovulation. I got put
Speaker 3: to a fertility specialist. She goes, you're not getting pregnant
Speaker 3: in any way shape or form on this medication at
Speaker 3: the moment. So in order to get me just to ovulate,
Speaker 3: she had to triple my dose for double the time
Speaker 3: with this lectrosol, and we're tracking, I was getting blood
Speaker 3: tests tracking when I'm ovulating. Here we are trying to
Speaker 3: have sex every second day, Like it's just ridiculous. It
Speaker 3: just makes everything feel so procedural, and it just takes
Speaker 3: the fun out of everything, and it's just not the
Speaker 3: way that you plan to get pregnant. It takes a
Speaker 3: surprise out of it, it takes the joy out of Yeah,
Speaker 3: it just made everything feel really medical. But that's what
Speaker 3: we had to do, and so be it will do it.
Speaker 1: After a year of tracking ovulation and not falling pregnant,
Speaker 1: Taylor's next step was IVF, but the doctors warned her
Speaker 1: that it wasn't going to be straightforward for her.
Speaker 3: So my ovar is with chocolate block with follicles, which
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's great. Doesn't that mean I
Speaker 3: have this really high chance? But how she explained it
Speaker 3: to me was they're so full. Nothing can reach its
Speaker 3: full maturity inside your ovaries, and so you have these
Speaker 3: really immature follicles. But with IVF. Their job is to
Speaker 3: stimulate those follicles, and then they give you this drug
Speaker 3: that gets you to release those follicles. And naturally you
Speaker 3: only normally release one or two follicles here and there.
Speaker 3: But here I am with chocol block overariaes. I think
Speaker 3: there's upwards of maybe even sixty and per overy. Stupid number.
Speaker 3: So I was given like a really really low dose
Speaker 3: and it came to the collection phase and I remember
Speaker 3: them going, Taylor, did you hear that We've got your
Speaker 3: first egg? Got your first egg? And then the rest
Speaker 3: was a blur. I remember them coming in and saying, Taylor,
Speaker 3: we got thirty and I was like, thirty eggs? What Like?
Speaker 3: I know friends and family that have had IVF and
Speaker 3: they're getting four. I'm long thirty.
Speaker 1: Five days after Taylor's collection, an incredible fourteen embryos had
Speaker 1: survived to the blastocyst stage, but then she fell ill
Speaker 1: and was hospitalized with ovarian hyperstimulation, which took a few
Speaker 1: months to recover from, meaning a delay in transferring any
Speaker 1: of the embryos into her So remember that Taylor was
Speaker 1: still on letrosola this stage, as her PCOS meant she
Speaker 1: didn't naturally ovulate but she was three months off the
Speaker 1: IVF stimulation. Finally, three months after the retrieval date, it
Speaker 1: was time to implant the most viable embryo.
Speaker 3: When you're going for your transfer, you have regular blood
Speaker 3: tests to catch when you're ovulating, so as soon as
Speaker 3: you're ovulate five days later, you must have that transfer.
Speaker 3: And they need to catch that ovulation window very carefully,
Speaker 3: and we go for the embryo transfer. It's just a
Speaker 3: wild experience. I was just reading through my journal notes
Speaker 3: about it. And you work so hard for this day,
Speaker 3: and you think about getting pregnant, and you work so
Speaker 3: hard to get these eggs and get them to blastosses
Speaker 3: to get them to be an embryo, and you go
Speaker 3: in for this transfer appointment and it's five minutes, it's
Speaker 3: done and dusted. It's just like you're going in to
Speaker 3: get your eyebrows done. To these ladies, they're just so
Speaker 3: good at it. They're like, we've picked out your embryo
Speaker 3: number five. Here it is, we're about to transfer. It's
Speaker 3: just one embryo. It's just one embryo. And so they
Speaker 3: transfer it. We see the little light flash. Those that
Speaker 3: do if no, apparently you look for the flash on
Speaker 3: the ultrasound machine. It's apparently a telltale signed to see
Speaker 3: if the embryo has gone through. And they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: if you go, we'll give you a call in two
Speaker 3: weeks to let you know if that's happened. So then
Speaker 3: you go on this two week dreaded weight. It is
Speaker 3: the longest two weeks of your life. Like as soon
Speaker 3: as you walk out that appointment, first of all, you're like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to pooh because you're scared youre going
Speaker 3: to push this little embryo out. But they're like, don't worry,
Speaker 3: it won't happen. It's not going to fall out. But
Speaker 3: you're walking around with your legs held tired, like something's
Speaker 3: going to fall out of you. But yeah, two weeks
Speaker 3: we waited and it was so so stressful. But I
Speaker 3: instantly felt my boobs were getting bigger. I was feeling
Speaker 3: a bit different. But I was way too scared to
Speaker 3: verbalize any of this because I didn't want to put
Speaker 3: any bad voodoo out there. I just was okay, let's
Speaker 3: just pray to the gods because statistically, your first embryo
Speaker 3: transferred nomally isn't that successful.
Speaker 1: As someone who's gone through IVF. Let me tell you,
Speaker 1: the waiting periods are absolute torture. It is a constant cycle.
Speaker 1: It's two weeks of hope, excitement. It's did this injection work?
Speaker 1: It's my eggs in the right place. Is my body
Speaker 1: doing the right thing? Are my hormones doing the right thing?
Speaker 1: You feel like a pin cushion. Waiting for phone calls
Speaker 1: from embryologists is another certain kind of hell because you're constantly.
Speaker 2: Waiting for the phone call.
Speaker 1: You're staring at your phone waiting to see what's happening.
Speaker 2: And you do not want to miss that phone call.
Speaker 2: It is excruciating.
Speaker 1: The day that Taylor was due to receive her blood
Speaker 1: test results, the call came through at eleven am, but
Speaker 1: she torturously left the voicemail unheard so she could get
Speaker 1: the news with Sean that evening.
Speaker 3: Before we listen to it, we both say, okay, all right,
Speaker 3: if this doesn't work, and we're pretty sure it hasn't worked,
Speaker 3: because we're looking at statistics here, we have another thirteen
Speaker 3: and goes this isn't give up stage. We need to
Speaker 3: stay positive in this journey because this journey can go
Speaker 3: on for quite a long time. And anyways, we press play,
Speaker 3: and she says, congratulations still makes me so emotional because
Speaker 3: that's the day you hope and you pray for. And oh,
Speaker 3: like we had wished of that day for so long
Speaker 3: and it was there and we were just like, oh,
Speaker 3: we just couldn't grasp what was happening around us, and
Speaker 3: we just held each other for so long and we
Speaker 3: were just like, oh my god, like it's happened. We're pregnant.
Speaker 3: At that point, we're going, oh my god, we're pregnant
Speaker 3: with one baby, and gosh, things changed coming up. And
Speaker 3: then we walk out the door and then the weight
Speaker 3: just crushes me and I'm just in Shan's arms and
Speaker 3: we're just trying to get back to the car and
Speaker 3: I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we don't
Speaker 3: even know what to say to each other.
Speaker 1: Every mm waits with baited bread for the all important
Speaker 1: dating scan, when you find out how many weeks pregnant
Speaker 1: you're measuring and the approximate date that you'll be blowing
Speaker 1: out those birthday candles each year. It may be the
Speaker 1: day you see their first tiny, wriggly arms and hear
Speaker 1: their strong, healthy heartbeats. Eight weeks later, Taylor and Sean
Speaker 1: returned to their IVF clinic to have their scan, and
Speaker 1: Taylor's account of finding out just how many bubs were
Speaker 1: in her stomach is stunningly vulnerable and honest.
Speaker 3: As much as it's incredible, I need to be honest
Speaker 3: about how I felt in that situation because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of emotions that come with this. So we're waiting
Speaker 3: in the waiting room, and aha, imagine if it's twins,
Speaker 3: La la la. So we go in, we sit down,
Speaker 3: we're in a room, Sean's beside me, We've got masks on,
Speaker 3: and there's a big TV in front of us, and
Speaker 3: the sonographers are my right. Sean's on my left shoulder,
Speaker 3: and she's lovely. And I've seen a fair few ultra
Speaker 3: sounds of my times with my PCOS and my adometriosis
Speaker 3: and getting ready to have this baby, so I kind
Speaker 3: of have gotten a grasp about what a belly should
Speaker 3: look like on an ultra seal machine. Sean doesn't know
Speaker 3: what he's looking at it. He could be looking at
Speaker 3: a PlayStation screen for early nosing. And so she's put
Speaker 3: the wand on my belly, and I've seen like multiple
Speaker 3: like black circles and then she's ripped it away and
Speaker 3: I see like the color drop from her face and
Speaker 3: I've instantly gone and she's gone. Sean's going, why is everyone?
Speaker 3: And like what's going on here? Like I'm trying to
Speaker 3: say things, nothing's really coming out. And she just put
Speaker 3: her hand on my leg and she said, Taylor, you
Speaker 3: have multiple pregnancies in here. I have to count to
Speaker 3: know how many you have in here. I can't even
Speaker 3: like fear. It was just fear. And so she started
Speaker 3: counting and she's put the warmth on. She's gone, okay, one,
Speaker 3: all right, two, and I'm like, holy crap. And she's
Speaker 3: gone three and I'm like, oh my god. Three, and
Speaker 3: then she's gone four. Oh, oh my god. For I'm
Speaker 3: instantly hysterical, like I can't breathe. I'm like I could
Speaker 3: feel my heart coming out of my chest. I was
Speaker 3: trying to hold back that big like cry, like I'm
Speaker 3: trying to regulate my breathing. And I remember like consciously thinking, Taylor,
Speaker 3: catch your breath, Catch your breath. You're gonna faint. Catch
Speaker 3: your breath. And she said, did you guys have sex
Speaker 3: after the trance plant? And we said no, no, no,
Speaker 3: not after no, like you told us not too after
Speaker 3: She's gone, okay, let me just count again. Sean and
Speaker 3: I trying to breathe, and I've just grabbed Sean's hands.
Speaker 3: I'm squeezing it for life on my shoulder. And I
Speaker 3: was so scared, like there was not an inch of
Speaker 3: excitement in me, to be completely honest, like I was
Speaker 3: just so overwhelmed with fear because I didn't know. This
Speaker 3: was just so unknown to me, Like I just didn't
Speaker 3: know what was happening. And to me, instantly, I thought,
Speaker 3: this pregnancy is scrapped, Like this is not a viable pregnancy.
Speaker 3: Four babies? What the hell? Like I can't carry four babies?
Speaker 3: Like am I gonna die? Like I literally thought, like
Speaker 3: could I die because of this? And so the next
Speaker 3: part was to go check what was viable and she said, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: I guess we start this kind of the way we
Speaker 3: do a twins, and I'll start at the cervix. Looks
Speaker 3: at the first sack. Yep, there's a baby, and there
Speaker 3: was a yoke sack in there as well. And then
Speaker 3: she puts on the sound and it's got the strong,
Speaker 3: like the strongest heartbeat ever, and oh, it gets emotional
Speaker 3: because that sound is like you see everybody's videos of
Speaker 3: like this heartbeat sound. You're like, oh, that's nice, But
Speaker 3: then it's the heartbeat that's coming from inside you, and
Speaker 3: that's your baby, and that's the sound like that you
Speaker 3: have longed for for so long. We're just wailing, like
Speaker 3: we're balling, and I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 3: hadn't even heard the word quadruplet. Like all three of
Speaker 3: us just stop and go, oh my god. The scenario
Speaker 3: has said she's been doing this for over thirty years
Speaker 3: and she's never seen it before. She goes get in
Speaker 3: touch with your doctor quick, and the realistic side of
Speaker 3: it all starts really really becoming quite heavy. Yeah, struggle
Speaker 3: to not let your mind go there about is this viable?
Speaker 3: Is this safe? Is everything going to be okay? And
Speaker 3: then we walk out the door and then the weight
Speaker 3: just crushes me and I'm just in Shawn's arms and
Speaker 3: we're just trying to get back to the car and
Speaker 3: I'm just hysterical, and we don't speak, like we don't
Speaker 3: even know what to say to each other. We're just
Speaker 3: not speaking, but we're just we're just in that moment
Speaker 3: right then and there, and we're just driving along. It's
Speaker 3: about an hour drive to get home, and we had
Speaker 3: to stop at Macis because I started getting hungry. I
Speaker 3: needed a six pack of nuggets asap. And we've gone
Speaker 3: through mc donald's and I've just said, Sean, what is
Speaker 3: this like we were hoping to get three kids across
Speaker 3: our lifetime, like what we're going to do? And on
Speaker 3: the way home, we pretty much just ended up saying that, Okay,
Speaker 3: if I'm well and the babies are well, we'll continue
Speaker 3: with what we have to do. And we're in a
Speaker 3: very amazing country with an incredible healthcare system, and we're
Speaker 3: going to follow the guidance of our doctors. And as
Speaker 3: much as the baby's health is important, so is mine,
Speaker 3: and we're going to find this medium between both and
Speaker 3: keep everybody safe.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the moment when I told my parents
Speaker 1: that we were pregnant. It happened straight after I found
Speaker 1: out with Dan, and it was one of the best
Speaker 1: moments of our life. But the reactions of Taylor's family
Speaker 1: and friends was utter disbelief.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we went home, we told our families and it
Speaker 3: was weird. It was how do you tell your family
Speaker 3: that you're pregnant with quadruplets, Like we just walked in
Speaker 3: and we just handed them the photo and we're like,
Speaker 3: we're having quadruplets, and I believed us and then they're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god.
Speaker 2: So one of the biggest questions I have about having
Speaker 2: cords is what was your pregnancy Like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my pregnancy was actually okay. Not much morning sickness,
Speaker 3: lots of headaches, lots of back pain. I started growing
Speaker 3: very quickly, and my eight week skin, I had a bump.
Speaker 3: By twelve weeks, I've got a belly like it was.
Speaker 3: It progressed very quickly. The babies all also had their
Speaker 3: own placentas, so I was growing rapidly. I was having
Speaker 3: fortnightly appointments down at Raynal Shore. They were doing cervical checks,
Speaker 3: checking on all the babies. These ultra sounds would go
Speaker 3: over two hours. Suddenly, on my twenty fourth week appointment,
Speaker 3: my cervix had dropped drastically and it was because I
Speaker 3: was pushing myself way too hard. I was just trying
Speaker 3: to do way too much. It was just silly. So
Speaker 3: I ended up in hospital. And while I was in hospital,
Speaker 3: they did like a rested test on me where when
Speaker 3: I woke up in the morning, I wasn't allowed to
Speaker 3: move and they wheeled me to this like science life,
Speaker 3: and they put this big mask on my face and
Speaker 3: I had to sit still and just breathe into it
Speaker 3: for fifteen minutes. And anybody that's been pregnant before like
Speaker 3: sitting like I was in a wheelchair for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: not moving with a big mask on your face. I was.
Speaker 3: It was ridiculous. But this was all to calculate how
Speaker 3: much energy I was burning at a rested heart rate,
Speaker 3: to see how much food I had to eat. So
Speaker 3: this test ended up telling them that I needed to
Speaker 3: eat three thousand calories a day, three thousand calories on
Speaker 3: a gestational diabetes hospital diet was foul like, and I
Speaker 3: was in hospital for two months. They're like on a
Speaker 3: two week menu rotation. In the hospital. I'd gone through
Speaker 3: everything it was, and I was so full, Like I
Speaker 3: was so big at thirty weeks I think I was
Speaker 3: measuring it. Fifty two weeks pregnant. I was massive and
Speaker 3: my lungs were getting compressed. I couldn't breathe properly because
Speaker 3: my lungs were so squished. I couldn't eat much because
Speaker 3: my stomach was getting squished so pretty much. I couldn't
Speaker 3: have been meals. They were just loading me up on milk,
Speaker 3: this particular milk they had like in a little carden,
Speaker 3: and like crackers and cheese and their fruit, and I
Speaker 3: was trying my best to eat as much as I could.
Speaker 3: But I just did what I could. I soon figured
Speaker 3: out how to work out uber eats down there, and
Speaker 3: I'm just quickly going outside for some fresh air, and
Speaker 3: mc donald's would arrive and I'd scoff it down and
Speaker 3: then walk back in. And I had to keep a
Speaker 3: close eye with sugars and things like that. But the
Speaker 3: hospital food got real old, real quick. When I was
Speaker 3: on Yeah, that many calories a day.
Speaker 1: So Taylor was in hospital almost two months before her birth,
Speaker 1: a huge amount of time to be away from home.
Speaker 1: So how did she keep persanity?
Speaker 3: But I just made sure I had a routine. I
Speaker 3: wasn't on full bed rest. I was still allowed to
Speaker 3: get up and walk around, so I tried to have
Speaker 3: a routine of get up, have a shower, make my bed.
Speaker 3: I bought all my own bedding in the room was
Speaker 3: very much my room. I had photo frames, I had
Speaker 3: artwork like, I had my own fan. It was my room.
Speaker 3: One of my girlfriends bought me like a really nice
Speaker 3: haircare routine, so I always get excited for my hair
Speaker 3: washing days, even though i'd have to sit down to
Speaker 3: wash my hair cause I'd get so puffed I would
Speaker 3: do that, I'd go for a walk outside, come back in.
Speaker 3: So in the hospital, the TV was like I think
Speaker 3: I've seen iPads bigger than the TV that was in
Speaker 3: my room. I remember the Jilarus were playing, and when
Speaker 3: my friends plays in the Jiales and I really wanted
Speaker 3: to watch their game. I would just watch Tipping Point
Speaker 3: like Deal, like all those little shows. I felt like
Speaker 3: my nan like I had scheduled times to watch TV.
Speaker 3: I think I read maybe two three books. I wasn't
Speaker 3: that big of a reader, but sudoku, like I was
Speaker 3: a Sudoku queen. When Sean would come down and I
Speaker 3: was like, right, we're having a cop because I knew
Speaker 3: that I was better than him at sadoaku, so I
Speaker 3: was like, right, we're versing each other in sadoku and
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, Sean and I are very competitive,
Speaker 3: so any game that came out with a winner, we
Speaker 3: would be playing that, and the nurses would come in
Speaker 3: to do my blood pressure and stuff, and like, hold on,
Speaker 3: it's going to be high at the moment because I'm
Speaker 3: about to smash him in, you know, So just give us.
Speaker 2: Five minutes and come back coming up.
Speaker 3: I definitely had some times where it was rough, and
Speaker 3: I remember just bawling my eyes out, going like I
Speaker 3: just I'm gassed, Like I'm mentally exhausted. You want to
Speaker 3: go as far as you can for your babies, and
Speaker 3: you feel guilty for thinking like I can't keep going anymore.
Speaker 1: For those of us who have only ever had one
Speaker 1: baby in our time is at a time, it's not
Speaker 1: easy to comprehend how they all actually fit in there,
Speaker 1: Like can you feel each baby individually move?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So while I was in the hospital, they were
Speaker 3: only doing an ultrasound on me once a week and
Speaker 3: then a full anatomy scan every fortnight. And during the
Speaker 3: time of having ultrasounds, the way we monitor the babies
Speaker 3: was all through me. I was in tune with each baby.
Speaker 3: They all had their own placenta, so they were all
Speaker 3: in a fixed position and I could tell when it
Speaker 3: was baby one or baby two, baby three, or baby four.
Speaker 3: And they would just say to me every day, have
Speaker 3: you felt baby one, two, three, and four, and I'd
Speaker 3: go yep, iuck and feel yep, yep, yep. They're all
Speaker 3: doing this, that and the other. I could tell from
Speaker 3: their movement who was who, and it has transferred across.
Speaker 3: They're very similar now to what they were in the womb.
Speaker 3: It's very weird. Yeah, I was very in tuned with
Speaker 3: all of them.
Speaker 1: Taylor's resilience and positivity during the epic job of growing
Speaker 1: four babies is really incredible, but she admits it wasn't
Speaker 1: always an easiestlog. She relied on an excellent support system
Speaker 1: to get her through.
Speaker 3: And I was progressing really well. So our goal was
Speaker 3: to get me to thirty two weeks. And they even
Speaker 3: had like a little betting chart in their office about
Speaker 3: how far do we reckon Taylor's going to get And
Speaker 3: we all had bets, and I had a white board
Speaker 3: up in my room and I had like a tally
Speaker 3: going of how many days I'd get to And that
Speaker 3: was what helped me get through a lot too. Was Okay,
Speaker 3: need to get to this next milestone because the statistics
Speaker 3: the serious effects that babies can have from being born
Speaker 3: early are very very serious. But there's like a turning
Speaker 3: point at like twenty eight thirty weeks, Like once you
Speaker 3: get to that milestone, you're coming into a safety area.
Speaker 3: So I definitely had some times where it was rough.
Speaker 3: I remember my social worker coming in and just bawling
Speaker 3: my eyes out, going like I just I'm gassed, Like
Speaker 3: I'm mentally exhausted. You want to go as far as
Speaker 3: you can for your babies, and you feel guilty for
Speaker 3: thinking like I can't keep going anymore. So I was
Speaker 3: really really battling in my mind some days. And there
Speaker 3: was days where they would come in and go, how
Speaker 3: you doing today, And I was just a blubbering mess.
Speaker 3: So I really had to have a strong support team
Speaker 3: around me. And Sean was just like full credit to
Speaker 3: the man. He was amazing. He wasn't like I get
Speaker 3: emotional talking about it because he was like a lot
Speaker 3: of people talk about my efforts in this pregnancy, but
Speaker 3: he made just as much of an effort and a
Speaker 3: sacrifice for our family too, because he was still working
Speaker 3: full time. He's a high school teacher, and he continued
Speaker 3: working and after work he'd go home and he was
Speaker 3: working on renovations on the house, and then he would
Speaker 3: finish those at like eight o'clock at night and then
Speaker 3: drive an hour and a half down to sleep the
Speaker 3: night on a lounge chair in the hospital, and then
Speaker 3: would get up at five o'clock and drive back straight
Speaker 3: into work and do all that every single day for
Speaker 3: two months. He didn't skip a day and the only
Speaker 3: reason for him to come down on those days was
Speaker 3: to be my support, Like there was no other purpose
Speaker 3: for him to be there other than to be my support.
Speaker 3: So he played a big role in keeping my mental
Speaker 3: well being positive in that really long time.
Speaker 1: So after Taylor got to thirty weeks, D day or
Speaker 1: Q day loomed, but she still had a definite goal.
Speaker 2: For a funny reason, my.
Speaker 3: Doctor had a holiday looked in just before that. So
Speaker 3: it's like, Taylor, we're getting you to thirty two weeks,
Speaker 3: and so I'm holding on for dear life. But I'm
Speaker 3: starting to get headaches and starting to get a bit
Speaker 3: of blurries. So my blood pressure is starting to come up,
Speaker 3: which I had nothing this entire time while I was
Speaker 3: in there, and the Braxton Hicks was getting hectic. My
Speaker 3: stomach was morphing in all different shapes, and like my
Speaker 3: stomach would be pushed over to one side and then
Speaker 3: be pushed and stuck in this other side. And then
Speaker 3: I was having like contractions and I was timing them,
Speaker 3: and doctors were coming down and feeling my belly and
Speaker 3: they're like, it feels like you having contractions, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: you're telling me, like, yeah, it does feel like that.
Speaker 3: So I'm getting cervical examinations like every night for a
Speaker 3: few nights and they're not fun. And then it was like, okay,
Speaker 3: you're looking like you're potentially getting clancier. Yeah. So I
Speaker 3: was like, look, I want to be proactive. Let's not
Speaker 3: wait till something gets bad and do something. The babies
Speaker 3: are healthy, I'm ready, let's go. Let's get the show
Speaker 3: on the road. And the nick you needed to have
Speaker 3: extra staff on. They had done practice rehearsals of the
Speaker 3: cesarean and there was over forty people in the room.
Speaker 3: There took two hours to go through a practice rehearsal.
Speaker 3: They had thought of everything. I had got special approval
Speaker 3: to get a photographer in the room, which I was
Speaker 3: really excited about. They come in and they're like, all right, Taylor,
Speaker 3: we've come up with a decision. Let's be proactive and
Speaker 3: you're going to give birth in forty eight hours, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, Okay, like, this is
Speaker 3: what we've been waiting for. I guess this is what
Speaker 3: I've been in here preparing for. It's going to happen.
Speaker 3: And the whole time I've just been focused so much
Speaker 3: on getting further and getting further. I hadn't thought about
Speaker 3: the birth yet because I was like, no, I'm not
Speaker 3: thinking about the birth. I need to just focus on
Speaker 3: staying pregnant.
Speaker 1: So at thirty two weeks pregnant, Taylor readied herself for
Speaker 1: the biggest day of her life while the staff at
Speaker 1: the hospital prepped for a multiple's birth that they hadn't
Speaker 1: had to attempt since nineteen ninety five. In Part two,
Speaker 1: you'll hear how Taylor's mine blowing birth went down.
Speaker 3: It felt like I was walking down the aisle of
Speaker 3: my wedding again, Like I come in and everybody is
Speaker 3: like lining the wall, like everybody's got their back against
Speaker 3: the wall. Everyone's eyes were just on me, and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh my god, this is happening.
Speaker 2: Plus what the first moments of her bub's lives were like.
Speaker 3: And I was a bit worried because I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: not really feeling much emotion? Is there something wrong with me?
Speaker 3: Like I'm not. Everyone's talks about like this, like crazy
Speaker 3: amounts of emotions you feel when you go into birth,
Speaker 3: and I'm not feeling anything. Then they just show one
Speaker 3: baby and show and I just burst into tears and
Speaker 3: we're like, oh my god, there's actually a baby. There's
Speaker 3: babies in there. This is real.
Speaker 2: And what happens when you get four newborns home.
Speaker 3: I came home and there wasn't a toilet in the house.
Speaker 3: Sean was trying to surprise me with this bathroom, but
Speaker 3: he thought I was going to be in hospital for
Speaker 3: so much longer that we had to get a camping
Speaker 3: toilet out on the deck like I was postpartum using
Speaker 3: a camping toilet outside. It was wild, absolutely wild.
Speaker 1: But before we hear more of this amazing story, let's
Speaker 1: check in with our wonderful resident pediatrician, doctor Golly on
Speaker 1: just how likely Taylor's story.
Speaker 4: Is naturally quads. It's close to one in a million.
Speaker 4: It's basically one in eight hundred thousand pregnancies roughly, and
Speaker 4: then if you're talking identical, that's four identical humans. The
Speaker 4: probability extends out to one in fifteen million. When you
Speaker 4: compare that to the incidence of twins naturally, it's roughly
Speaker 4: one in two hundred and fifty pregnancies. But interestingly, the
Speaker 4: chances of multiples like twins, it increases with higher maternal age,
Speaker 4: so it's more common in women over thirty five. But
Speaker 4: it's also more common if there's a family history of twins.
Speaker 4: And then there's IVF, So here the chances when it
Speaker 4: comes to IVF pregnancies, the chances of twins is as
Speaker 4: high as thirty percent, so almost one in three, and
Speaker 4: the chances of quads with IVF it's reported differently in
Speaker 4: different centers, but we're probably in the vicinity of half
Speaker 4: to one percent.
Speaker 2: And why is there a higher chance with IVF pregnancies?
Speaker 4: So there are a couple of reasons here. Firstly, traditional
Speaker 4: older IVF used to transfer multiple embryos in the hope
Speaker 4: that one of them sticks, so you're logically increasing the
Speaker 4: chance of more than one implanting. But also before that,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of ovarian stimulation, and when you have
Speaker 4: that involved, it means women might ovulate two eggs instead
Speaker 4: of just one, which increases the chances of die. Psychotic
Speaker 4: non identical twins. But also this usually happens on the
Speaker 4: background of a longer fertility journey, so we are talking
Speaker 4: about older women on average, and again, as we mentioned before,
Speaker 4: that does increase the chance of twinning.
Speaker 1: Part two of Taylor's utterly incredible story is available now
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. You won't believe how much
Speaker 1: weight she lost in the twenty four hours after birth,
Speaker 1: plus the size of her insane placenta.
Speaker 2: When it was removed.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in sharing your birth story with us
Speaker 1: on Diary of a Birth, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Details are in the show notes. Diary of a Birth
Speaker 1: was hosted by me Kasenya Lukicic with expert input from
Speaker 1: doctor Gollie, Audio production by Scott Stronach and our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Georgie Page.