Oh, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby
Like Julie and Patti, both Karen Wesolowski and her partner, Martha Padgett, wanted to carry a child, but they never expected that they would be pregnant simultaneously.
After an expensive round of failed IVF, the two had decided that this was their last effort, so Martha, then 37, and Karen, then 41, decided to increase their chances of conceiving by each having two of Martha's eggs, fertilized with the same donor, implanted.
"[For us] there was only a 30 percent chance per embryo that they would result in pregnancy, and we were only implanting four in total, so we thought their was just no way both of us were going to become pregnant," says Karen. In fact, Richard Paulson, M.D., a fertility specialist and the director of USC Fertility, has said there was only a 1 percent chance that both women would become pregnant with two children each.
Despite the odds, nine months later and 22 hours apart, Karen and Martha each gave birth to twins. (Last year, Karen and Martha were profiled in Discovery Health's hour-long program, Quads with Two Moms, which will reair Thursday, July 16.)
"We were very, very excited," says Karen, "But it was surreal, and it was scary. You know, you think, How are we going to do all this? And we weren't prepared, even though we knew it was a possibility."
But the experience of simultaneous pregnancies bonded Karen and Martha and their family in a profound way.
"I think when you are both pregnant at the same time, you have more empathy for each other. There is more understanding, though it is hard, because you're cranky and it's hot and you're pregnant," Karen says. "When the embryos were implanted, we were in the room together having them implanted an hour apart. Going through the whole experience at the same time and through labor, and knowing that you are both going through this at the same time, I think it brings you closer."
Now that their quadruplets—Alex, Andrew, Sophia, and Sienna—are nearly 22 months old, life had changed drastically for Martha and Karen. The two moms still work full-time—Martha as a nurse and Karen as a physical therapist—staggering their hours so that one of them is at home all the time.
"Is it harder having four babies than one?" says Karen. "Yes. You know, just the amount of diapers and the amount of food. It's stressful, and it's definitely tough on the finances, but we wouldn't have it any other way, and if [we] had to make the decision over again, we would do the same."
Next Page: New Ways to Build Families
