Jenny and Chris Marr were hardly ready to welcome the triplets they’d be scheduled to deliver in March — during the coronavirus pandemic, no less.
So when they later discovered their three babies would actually be four — a set of identical quadruplets — the couple was shocked.
The Marrs, from Dallas, Texas, had both been raised as only children, and neither had a family history of multiple births. Jenny wasn’t on fertility treatments either.
Even three babies seemed like a few too many at first.
“It sounds horrible to say, but I don’t know if it was necessarily tears of joy. We were completely overwhelmed and, frankly, terrified,” Chris told the Washington Post.
Experts say a naturally occurring pregnancy of quadruplets is exceedingly rare, happening about once in every 11 million births.
“This situation is so incredibly rare that there are only about 72 documented cases of spontaneous, identical quadruplets ever,” Dr. Brian Rinehart of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said in a press release.
Other parents who have delivered new babies during the pandemic have had their own challenges, from contracting the virus themselves to a spouse being called into the delivery room on FaceTime.
Jenny, 35, went into labor the day before Dallas County’s mandatory stay-at-home restrictions were announced.
“It’s a different world we live in now, and it’s really interesting to be going through all of this. We literally gave birth on the day the pandemic broke out,” she told CBS DFW last week.
Today, sons Hudson, Harrison, Henry and Hardy are doing well. Even the smallest baby, at just 1 pound, 15 ounces, didn’t require oxygen, although they all stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for several weeks. Last week, the whole family of six was home at last.
“It was kind of hard to wrap our head around but we’re doing good with it. It’s fun, it’s exciting,” said Jenny. “To be able to share these little miracles … it’s just been really special.”
Even though the baby boys are starting to develop their own individual personalities, they still wear ankle bracelets so their parents can tell the difference between them.
“We confuse them from time to time,” Chris, 35, said.
