Quintuplets were recently delivered by a Mississippi husband and wife, but this unusual event wasn’t just about the number of children.
Since they met in preschool, Haylee and Shawn Ladner have been married for almost four years.
The couple recently relocated to Purvis, Mississippi, to be nearer to their families after learning some news that changed their lives.
“We are going to need all the help we can get,” Haylee Ladner told Fox News Digital.
She had visited her doctor for a checkup four weeks after the intrauterine insemination (IUI) that had confirmed her pregnancy.
Her hCG levels were examined during her check-up, and the results showed levels of more than 2,000 mIU/mL.
“[It] was crazy, because even in my first two pregnancies that never happened,” Haylee Ladner said.
Her previous pregnancies resulted in miscarriages, she said.
The couple had an ultrasound on September 22, 2023, which was the longest she had been pregnant, at her seven-week check-up.
“[That] was nerveracking in and of itself, because I didn’t know at that point what we were going to see [or] if the babies were going to have a heartbeat,” the new mom said.
Due to the high hCG levels, the couple were expecting to see twins on the ultrasound.
They were shown two gestational sacs, but the doctor did a sort of double take, saying, “I’ve never seen this before.”
According to Shawn Ladner of Fox News Digital, this caused the couple to experience some anxiety.
Haylee Ladner was carrying quintuplets, with four of the five infants being identical multiples, according to the two gestational sacs.
“She had a quintuplet pregnancy with four identical females. Reports of spontaneous quintuplets vary but are about 1 in 60 million,” Dr. Rachael Morris, associate professor of maternal fetal medicine at University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), shared during a recent press conference.
“There are very few reports of identical quadruplets in the literature to date. Reported incidence is 1 in 10 to 15 million pregnancies.”
The news that five babies’ heartbeats were present shocked Dr. Morris as well as the Ladners and their families.
The mother of Haylee Ladner was filming the encounter when she dropped her phone in the midst of the commotion, according to the new mother.
“I had to sit down on the bed with her. I couldn’t stand up,” Shawn Ladner recalled.
“My immediate reaction was just fear for her, because I [thought], ‘How is she going to carry five kids?'”
