Mom of 7 ‘Couldn’t Believe’ She Was Pregnant with Ultra-Rare Quadruplets, 3 of Whom Are Identical (Exclusive)

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• April Martinez and Shawnpail Fields of Jarrell, Texas, became parents of quadruplets Artemis, Curtis, Denahi and Eudora on July 13.

• This is one of the rare examples of quadruplets being conceived naturally without fertility treatment.

• “I started crying. I couldn’t believe it,” Martinez told PEOPLE when she was told by a doctor that she was pregnant with quadruplets.

A Texas couple has achieved a feat described as approximately 1 in a million: having quadruplets naturally, without fertility treatment.

In July, in April, Martinez and her husband, Shawnpail Fields, both 25, welcomed sons Artemis, Curtis and Denahi, and daughter Eudora, in the first multiple birth, US reported. Austin American Statesman.

The children join three siblings in the Martinez-Fields’ family of nine.

“It never quite caught on,” Martinez, of Jarrell, Texas, tells PEOPLE about the birth of their baby quadruple. “I don’t think it will ever happen because I still don’t believe it.”

“To me, I don’t think we’re doing anything crazy,” he adds. “This is our life.”

Martinez says she and Fields found out she was pregnant on Jan. 20. He had recently started serving as a correctional officer, so he waited for his insurance to start before making an appointment to see his obstetrician/gynecologist.

But then she felt pain at work and went to the emergency room alone to get an ultrasound.

“One of the nurses who came in was joking, ‘What would you do if you were having multiple births?’ ” Martinez recalls. “I thought: Oh, that would be so crazy. And he said: ‘What would you do if you lived more than two?’ ‘You may all have to accept me,’ I said. I think I might lose it.’ ”

“He just laughed and left the room,” Martinez continues. “Then he came back with the doctor and the doctor said: ‘I’ve never told anyone this in my 20 years of life. You have quadruplets.’ I started to cry. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Martinez called her husband from the hospital and told him they were expecting more than one child.

“She said, ‘Are we having twins? And I said, ‘No. It’s more than that.’ ‘Triplets? No, stop playing.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not playing.’ There’s more to it than that.’ ‘Four?’ he asked. He couldn’t believe it.”

St. in Austin, Texas. Dr. David’s, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at North Austin Medical Center. Jasbir Singh oversaw Martinez’s care after the ultrasound and described the quadruplets’ natural conception as extraordinary.

The odds of having natural quadruplets are between 1 in 700,000 and 1 in a million, he said.

“We see twins and triplets quite often these days when given infertility treatments,” she told PEOPLE. “But hers was a spontaneous quadruplet pregnancy, which is extraordinarily unique and rare and makes it very special. More importantly, the fact that there were three identical babies is remarkable.”

In Martinez’s case, she says she was carrying four babies but only had two placentas. “The placenta is basically the heart-lung machine that provides nutrients to the tree, or the roots of the tree,” he says. “So the three babies shared the same root system.”

Singh advised Martinez to start bed rest in the 26th week of her pregnancy, and the babies are expected to be born in the 30th week. “Quadrupts are very complex,” he says. “Multiple pregnancies are very complicated because they have an extraordinarily high rate of preterm birth. The average gestational age for twins is about 36 weeks. For triplets, it’s about 32 weeks. You might think it’s even earlier for quadruplets, but there are a number of complications that can occur throughout the pregnancy.”

Martinez continued working at her job until she experienced contractions and left St. Louis on June 14. He was taken to David’s North Austin Medical Center. During her stay, she was visited by her three children and her husband, Shawnpail, who brought a PlayStation to the hospital to keep her entertained.

“It took us a while to figure out how to connect this to the hospital,” Martinez recalls. “Once we figured it out, me and my dad were going to play a game. Call of Duty every night. It was pretty nice to get some sense of normalcy while I was there. lots of crochet [baby blankets] And Call of Duty It was my biggest time consumer.

On July 13, a problem with the delivery of nutrients through the cord of Artemis, one of the quadruplets, led to birth. “He wasn’t getting paid as much as he should have been like the others,” Martinez says. “We were all in Artemis’ timeline.”

“[Artemis] “We got really small and really sick,” says Singh, “And we wanted to maximize pregnancy for the benefit of all, because you can’t just go in, have one baby and leave the others behind.” We needed to push the limits for that little baby so that other babies could benefit and maximize their potential. “So we gritted our teeth for a while, but eventually that baby declared she was sick enough to deliver herself.”

The birth took place in an operating room large enough to accommodate the required number of medical personnel. “Usually when you walk in they tell you there’s a team for you, people will do your C-section, and then there’ll be a team for the baby,” Martinez recalls. “So they had to have four separate sets, one for each baby. It was pretty packed.”

Then the quads appeared: 2 lbs., 1 oz. Artemis; Denhai 3 lbs., 1 oz.; Curtis 3 lbs., 2 oz. and Eudora 2 lbs. and 13 oz. Because they were born prematurely, they were each wheeled to the NICU, where their mothers saw them after they recovered in the postpartum room.

After Martinez was discharged from the hospital three days after giving birth, she and Fields took turns visiting the quads, depending on the couple’s work schedules and who could care for their older child.

In late August, Curtis, Denahi, and Eudora were able to go home, while Artemis’ stay in the hospital lasted a little longer due to nutritional problems. He was finally discharged on November 9. Now that all his quadriceps are at home, Martinez says he can breathe again. “I just felt like I was waiting and waiting and waiting. We feel complete now. We can move on with our new normal.”

When they learned they were having quadruplets early in the pregnancy, Martinez and Fields purchased a van to accommodate their large litter. The family recently moved to a new house after previously living in an apartment.

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“We’re doing the best we can trying to figure this out and see what’s best for us,” Martinez says of the couple’s new arrangement. “My husband has now returned to work. While he is at work, I am at home with my babies and my wife. [elder] girls go to school. And when you’re home in the afternoon, it’s like, okay, I’m taking a break now, you know? So we’ll do some swapping to make it work. We will figure this out.

After the birth of the quadruplets, Martinez’s tubes were tied, as this was her last pregnancy. The family plans to spend the holiday at Martinez’s sister’s house. “There’s the biggest living room, so we’re going to fill it up,” Martinez says. “It’ll be great. Artemis missed Halloween, but that’s not crazy. She’ll be here for Christmas. I can’t wait.”

Looking back on the experience of giving birth to quadruplets, Martinez says, “When you just do it, you don’t have time to think about it because you’re pretty busy. But I guess from an outsider’s perspective it’s pretty crazy.”

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