A 42-year-old Mississippi woman who thought she was pregnant with triplets was surprised earlier this month to find out she was actually carrying identical quadruplets.
The pregnancy itself was a surprise for the Fugate family of Walthall County, Miss. Kimberly and Craig, parents to 10-year-old Katelyn, weren’t expecting to conceive a baby, let alone three.
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But there was about to be an even bigger surprise. Unbeknownst to the Fugates or their doctors, Kimberly Fugate was actually carrying four babies — the fourth concealed in all the ultrasound images.
They wouldn’t know about the hidden fetus until Feb. 8, when Fugate was forced to undergo an emergency caesarean section after going into labor at just 28 weeks.
"We were trying to get as long as we could — as many days in as we could
with the pregnancy," Fugate told CNN affiliate WAPT.com. "They just decided that morning they were coming."
"They had gotten the three out and they said, 'More feet,' and I said, 'No!' It was an instant shock," she said.
The identical quadruplets, all girls, weighed less than three pounds each and were rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit because their lungs weren't fully developed. They'll remain there at the Winfred L. Wiser Hospital for Women and Infants at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., for the next few months, doctors said.
According to CNN, the odds of conceiving quadruplets without fertility treatment — like the Fugates did — is about 1 in 729,000. That figure climbs even higher when dealing with identical multiples.
"No one really knows what makes a single zygote separate into identical twins or identical triplets, or in this case, identical quadruplets,"
Dr. James Bofill, Kimberly Fugate's doctor, told the Clarion Ledger. "It’s definitely an accident; it’s not supposed to happen and, in some cases, like Ms. Fugate's, it happens in a spectacular manner . . . Those odds are incalculable."
The quadruplets are named Kenleigh Rosa, Kristen Sue, Kayleigh Pearl, and Kelsey Roxanne.
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