'A lot to take in:' Springs couple welcomes quadruplets

Eight days ago, Jennifer Last gave birth to her first child.

And her second. And third. And fourth.

It wasn’t exactly what she and her husband, Justin, bargained for in the way of family planning.

“We were shooting for two — one at a time,” Justin, said Friday, just moments before sitting down for a press conference at Memorial Hospital downtown, where babies Fiona, Eric, Lana and Nathan will remain in the neonatal intensive care unit until they’re strong and healthy enough to go home.

At least the couple, both 27 years old, had some time to process the idea that they were about to become the parents of four children at once. Jennifer was 12 weeks pregnant when they found out she was having more than one baby.

“It was a lot to take in,” Justin said.

The couple had been prepared for the possibility of twins, because they run on both sides of the family. And Jennifer had taken a fertility drug, Clomid, which gave her a small chance of having twins. But quads?

“I’ve never seen quads from Clomid,” said Dr. Laura Klein, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Memorial. “There’s a .1 percent risk of getting quads.”

There’s also a high risk of premature births with quads, and it played out with Jennifer, who started going into premature labor 21 weeks into the pregnancy. She ended up spending 10 weeks on bed rest at the hospital, and the babies were born at 31 weeks; the average gestational period is 28.29 weeks for quads, Klein said.

While on bed rest, Jennifer started showing signs of preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that carries of risk of bleeding during delivery. Doctors delivered the babies by cesarean section July 23.

At birth, the babies’ weight ranged from 2 pounds, 5 ounces for Nathan, to 3 pounds, 8 ounces for Fiona. Dr. Robert Kiley, a newborn intensive care specialist, said the biggest immediate worries about such tiny babies are lung disease, respiratory problems and low body temperature. But these babies, he said, are doing “phenomenally” well, and are on just a little oxygen.

The babies could be home by mid-September, and when they are, the Lasts will be ready. Because they knew they wanted children, they bought a big enough house, although, Jennifer said, the boys will have to share one bedroom and the girls another. They had time to exchange their Subaru Forester for a seven-passenger Mazda CX-9. And friends have been bringing them food and plying them with offers of help.

Jennifer planned to be a stay-at-home mom whether she had one child or four, so she won’t be going back to her job as a park interpreter at Garden of the Gods. Justin wishes he could spend all his time with his children, but knows that he’s got a big job as the breadwinner.

“My 40-hour week is going to support six people,” said Justin, a satellite engineer at Schriever Air Force Base. “That’s certainly incentive to get out there and try to be the best I can.”