“Four blessings.” That’s how one Coastal Bend couple described the addition of quadruplets to their little family this year.
Adriana Luna and her fiance, Anthony Lerma, welcomed their four quadruplet daughters at Corpus Christi Medical Center on Valentine’s Day this year. However, the unexpected — but very welcome — blessing is bringing new challenges, as the family suddenly has to contend with all the typical new baby things, like diapers and formula, times four. So now they’re reaching out, asking for the public’s help. It takes a village, after all.
“While we are beyond grateful for these four blessings, this has also brought sudden emotional, physical, and financial challenges,” the parents — who also have a 2-year-old son — said in a recent GoFundMe post.
“Caring for quadruplets means quadruple the diapers, formula, medical care, and daily essentials—on top of adjusting to life as new parents of four newborns at once,” the GoFundMe reads.
According to the post, Luna became pregnant while using an intrauterine device (IUD), which is typically 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. That made the news of her pregnancy come as a surprise. But the surprises continued when doctors discovered she was carrying multiple babies, and they weren’t talking about twins.
“What started as the news of one baby quickly became two, and then, unbelievably, four,” the GoFundMe reads.
The complex pregnancy meant Luna had to withdraw from a nursing program she had recently begun at Delmar College. Ultimately, she delivered four baby girls after 29 weeks and four days of gestation, according to KRIS 6 News, Corpus Christi’s NBC affiliate. The couple named them Amora, Analia, Arya and A’zura.
While the likelihood of multiple babies in pregnancies achieved via fertility assistance, such as in vitro fertilization, can be as high as 30%, the chance of having a “spontaneous” multiple pregnancy is less common. Twins occur naturally in only about 3% of pregnancies. The chances of becoming pregnant with more than two babies at once become even more astronomical after that.
According to Raising Multiples, a nonprofit dedicated to helping families experiencing multiple-fetus pregnancies, the likelihood of having a “spontaneous” quadruplet pregnancy is 1 in nearly 572,000. And the chances that those four babies will be identical quadruplets are about 1 in 15.6 million. Having a parent who is a multiple themselves increases the odds of producing a multiple pregnancy. In this case, Lerma, the babies’ father, is a twin, according to KRIS 6 News. Though it would take genetic testing to confirm, the couple believes their daughters are identical quadruplets.