GILLETTE, Wyo.-
A Gillette family has doubled in size with the recent birth of quadruplets at a Denver hospital.
Maureen Arnold, 28, gave birth to quadruplets at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver on Tuesday. Doctors say the three baby girls and one boy are healthy and should be ready to go to their home in Gillette by the middle of next week.
Maureen and husband Matt Arnold, 30, already have two daughters, Brooklynn, 6, and Alyssa, 3. They said they thought having one just more child would be the perfect addition to their family.
“Everything that was normal, or what we thought was normal, is going to change,” said Matt Arnold. “It’s going to be a three-ring circus.”
Maureen Arnold delivered the babies by Caesarian section at 34 weeks. The average term for quadruplets is 29 weeks. The typical human gestational period for a single birth is about 38 weeks.
Dr. Richard Porreco, one of the doctors who helped to deliver the Arnold quadruplets, said it’s uncommon for quadruplets to stay in the womb for so long. “But (Maureen) is of good stature at 5-foot-9,” he said. “They’re doing great.”
The Arnolds said they had worried about the health of their babies when they learned quadruplets were on the way.
“I cried a lot,” Maureen Arnold said. “Besides having four at one time, with multiples, there’s a lot of risk. You never know how the babies are going to be.”
In addition to worrying about the new babies’ health, the Arnolds had other practical concerns.
“We have two children already,” Maureen Arnold said. “We have to take care of four babies and give attention to the children we have already.”
Matt Arnold has been working on the basement at the family home in Gillette in recent weeks, preparing for a full house. His mother or mother-in-law will stay with the family for the babies’ first year.
Matt Arnold said he was relieved that one of the new babies is a boy. But he said that once he learned all the babies were healthy, he thought of the tough road ahead for a boy with five sisters.
“He’s going to have to be tough,” Matt Arnold said of his one son. “He’ll have to do the hyper-male thing—lots of hunting, lots of sports.”
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Information from: News-Record,
