Jenny Marr’s routine ultrasound quickly turned into a life-changing event when she learned that she wasn’t carrying just one baby. In fact, she and her partner Chris were about to welcome not three, but four new additions to their family. The couple, from Grapevine, Texas, had been trying to conceive for several months before the ultrasound revealed the incredible news.
Dr. Lauren Murray and her colleagues estimated that identical, spontaneous quadruplet births occur in 1 in 11 million or 1 in 15 million births – making this an extremely rare occurrence. “It’s unbelievable. It’ll never happen again in my career. I said, ‘Girl, go buy a few lottery tickets because those are the kind of odds we’re dealing with,'” Murray remarked. “What a miracle it was.”
Despite concerns about one baby pulling nutrients away from the others, the quadruplets proved to be perfectly ready to share. “The babies shared incredibly well. There were no incidents on the sonogram even leading up to that where we were worried that one of them, or two or three of them, would be significantly smaller,” Murray explained.
However, the journey wasn’t without its challenges. The quadruplets were born at just 28.5 weeks, during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Baby Harrison arrived first, weighing 2 pounds 6 ounces, followed by Hardy at 2 pounds 10 ounces, then Henry at 2 pounds 6.7 ounces, and finally Hudson, who weighed 1 pound 15 ounces. “They were all born in three minutes. It’s incredible,” Jenny recalled. “We called them our baby birds because they really looked like baby birds.”
Three of the babies had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit for 10 weeks to receive oxygen and other treatments, but they eventually came home in early May. Jenny and Chris couldn’t be happier with their four healthy and beautiful babies.
When the quadruplets turned one, Jenny gave an update on how they were doing: “They’re all crawling. I have two who will be walking in the next month probably, which means the other two aren’t far behind. They’re into everything. They’re dirty and messy. They’re already such little boys! Eating is just shoveling food into their face as fast as they possibly can. They’re funny and just sweet as can be.”
The quadruplets recently turned three, and they seem to be thriving. Jenny has even created an Instagram account where she shares updates and glimpses of the Marr family’s everyday life. With such a unique birth story, it’s natural that many people have questions about Jenny’s family and birth experience.
But despite the challenges they’ve faced, Jenny remains grateful and hopeful: “We just hope that this little story and our boys bring as much joy to everybody as they bring to us.”