Santa Visits Remarkable New Baby Quintuplets 

Christmas came early for Margaret and Michael Baudinet of Charlottesville, Virginia, who went from zero kids to five in just one day.  It was not easy getting there.

"I think that the day I got discharged from the hospital, I told Michael, this was the first day I was not afraid in nine months," Margaret told azcentral. "I think that was the moment where we both felt like we made it, like we have a family. This is something we've wanted for a really long time, and I wasn't afraid anymore."

Although Margaret is discharged, her five babies will remain in neonatal intensive care until they grow stronger.  That means they will not be home on Christmas.  So Santa visited them in the hospital, a bit early. 

The Baudinets had been trying to have children for quite some time, but previous pregnancies ended with devastating miscarriages.  Those losses had been so painful, when Margaret found out she was pregnant with five babies (with the assistance of hormone treatments), she refused to allow herself to look forward to the one thing she wanted more than anything, becoming a mother, for fear she would lose them as she had the others. 

"I have a very odd relationship with hope," she said. "After you suffer two miscarriages – and I think women who have been through that understand – it's really hard to get excited about a pregnancy, because as soon as I would get excited, something bad would happen."

Margaret and Michael were advised by some pregnancy experts to abort one or more child to increase the survival chance for the remaining children, but the Baudinet's refused.  Instead, they packed their bags and flew all the way to Arizona to receive care from Dr. John Elliot, a multiple birth specialist who says he has delivered more sets of quintuplets, 22, than anyone in the world. He's also delivered two sets of sextuplets.  

The Baudinet's made the right decision.  They remained in Arizona for the remaining three and a half months of the pregnancy under the watchful eye of Dr. Elliot.   Then on December 21st, a team of 24 health care specialists helped deliver the children at Phoenix's Dignity Health St. Joseph's Hospital.   The babies were born larger and healthier than most quints.  

At 32 weeks and one day gestation, they arrived eight weeks earlier than the normal gestation period for one baby, but much later than when most quints are delivered, 26 and a half weeks.  That's why the Baudinet babies were born bigger than most quints, weighing between 3 pounds 6 ounces and 3 pounds 14 ounces, and consequently, relatively healthy.  All of the babies are off ventilators now and are progressing well. 

Dr. Elliot says even with fertility help, quintuplets are very rare, only 50 to 60 sets are conceived in the U.S. each year.  Delivering a healthy set carries a number of challenges.  First, Elliot instructed Margaret to gain 80 to 100 pounds in order to feed them. 

"I think Chipotle was my 'go-to,'" chuckling, "Guacamole was the best way to add calories."

Dr. Elliott described the difficulties of her pregnancy: Aching everywhere, skin stretching, inability to sleep, constantly feeling nauseated.

"Every ache and misery that you can imagine, she had it 'times-10,' and she never complained, not once. Well, maybe once," he said, laughing.

Towards the end of the pregnancy when Margaret and Michael were beginning to believe the children were going to survive, they gave the go-ahead to their parents back in Virginia to set-up a nursery.

"I didn't design a nursery before we left because I was always worried that I was going to lose the babies, and didn't want to go home to a nursery and have to clean all that up," Margaret said.

Now the only problem is figuring out how to fly all those children back home to Virginia, since each will need an adult to accompany them on a plane flight and they don't want to drive.  But that's a good problem to have.