When this pregnant mother showed up at the hospital, some people were surprised that her belly was covered in bruises. However, if you looked at the ultrasound, you knew right away what was going on. I will tell you what happened: the pregnant woman’s name was Guillermina Garcia.
She is originally from Mexico but now lives in Utah with her husband, Fernando. They already had one daughter, one-year-old Juliet, but were looking forward to having more children.
For years, the average family size in the U.S has been 2.5 children, and most people think that two to three children is the perfect number. So, Guillermina and Fernando were hoping to get pregnant again. Therefore, together with her doctor, it was decided to give Guillermina a dose of fertility hormones to help her conceive. These medications are available but carry side effects.
One of the risks of this type of treatment is the conception of multiple children, such as twins or triplets. In general, the number of multiple births in the Western world has been increasing due to the increased availability and affordability of fertility treatments. The birth rate of twins, for example, has increased by 70 percent since 1980, and have you noticed that there are more and more videos of births with three, four, five, or six babies?
I have, and I always wonder how those parents must have felt when they got the news. It must be a mixture of excitement and fear – excitement because it is perhaps the fullest expression of the miracle of life, and most parents love to know that their family is about to expand, but also fear because with each additional baby, the risks of something going wrong.
During the gestation period, a whole host of conditions can arise, from preeclampsia, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, umbilical cord entanglement, premature delivery, abnormal amounts of amniotic fluid, postpartum hemorrhage, anemia, miscarriage, and birth defects. It is a long list, especially in cases of multiple pregnancies.
The probability of preterm birth is practically 100, but back to Guillermina. You probably saw this coming a long time ago, but when she went for one of her first checkups at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, she and her husband were in for a big scare. The ultrasound detected more than one beating heart, and guess what it turned out? There were no fewer than five babies in her womb – quintuplets.
Although multiple births are on the rise, having quintuplets is still very rare. Fewer than 10 quintuplets are born in the U.S each year. So neither Guillermina nor Fernando nor their doctors saw this coming. They were amazed but also quite relaxed in the months that followed.
The couple went back for checkups and ultrasounds and were always very relaxed about the fact that their family was going to go from three members to eight. But as this was to be Guillermina’s and the hospital’s first time welcoming quintuplets, the entire medical team was super excited. Perhaps even more so than the parents themselves. They asked Guillermina if they could film her pregnancy for documentation, and to their delight, she sheepishly agreed.
That’s how a video of one of the ultrasounds made it to the internet. Guillermina is seen lying on the bed next to the monitor while the nurse holds the probe against her huge belly, moving to get a good view of each of the babies on the screen. The doctor is standing next to her, also staring at the screen very excitedly. She speaks in Spanish, the language Guillermina is most comfortable with, but somehow what shocked everyone was not what appeared on the screen next to the bed. It was Guillermina’s belly, specifically the huge bruises she had. The entire lower part appeared to be black and blue, and upon seeing something like that, most people’s first thought is foul play – was her husband mistreating her? Was he unhappy with the number of children? They would have what dark thoughts and all completely unnecessary because this kind of bruising is absolutely normal when a body is carrying so many babies. As you can imagine, the uterus becomes quite cramped with five fetuses, and they were all constantly busy creating as much space for themselves as possible. This caused Guillermina’s belly to take bumps and punches; all the vigorous movements were, to her, simply signs that all the babies were alive and literally kicking.
Meanwhile, Fernando, oblivious to all the nasty comments she was stirring up, was merely being the doting father, accompanying his wife on what visits he could. The entire medical team was impressed by his support, but it was especially his wife who was applauded by everyone in the hospital. As expected, she ended up suffering from severe hypertension and preeclampsia during pregnancy, and just carrying so many babies in the womb can be a huge burden by the end.
Guillermina had grown huge and was wiggling through the halls of the hospital, but as her doctor Tracy Manic said, the mother was a remarkable person who never complained. You can see in the video Guillermina looked happy and serene and had even found the opportunity to put on makeup and look her best.
So how does one give birth to five children at once? As I said, most multiple births are premature simply because the body can only take so much time. But any doctor dealing with such a delivery will always hope that they will at least reach the 24-week mark when crucial developments have taken place in the lungs, which will reduce the need for long-term reliance on the NICU ventilator. Once babies have been out more than 28 weeks in the womb, it is even better but difficult in the case of multiples. However, Guillermina far surpassed the 24-week mark and even 28 weeks, even though she spent the last few weeks in bed. She was able to carry her five children to 31 and a half weeks for the birth. The hospital also had cameras rolling again, and Guillermina is seen being wheeled into the delivery room, where more than 25 doctors and nurses were present.
For the procedure, the hospital had never had quintuplets before, but they have had many women deliver triplets and quadruplets. Those experiences were about to help them. A team of five was assigned to each baby who, when the C-section got underway, were born in rapid succession. No more than two minutes apart, so it took almost nothing to bring the three girls and two boys into this world, each in their own incubator and connected to tubes to give them oxygen and nutrition. Initially, they were named Garcia A, B, C, D, and E, but it was later announced that they would be called Esmeralda, Fatima, Marissa, Fernando Jr., and Jordan. Fernando was the largest at birth, weighing just over a kilo or about 2 pounds, and all his siblings passed between half a kilo and a kilo. Not much for a normal baby, but quite an achievement for quintuplets. The father was also present at the birth, and after the event, he was put in front of the camera. He was visibly excited and said he felt like he was dreaming. It was truly amazing that all five babies were born healthy, breathing mostly on their own, and their doctors gave them every chance for a long, healthy life.
