For most couples, knowing that they are going to parent quadruplets naturally comes as a shock in itself. But if the news is also accompanied by a serious illness in the mother, it is logical not to know how to deal with it.
That is what happened to Katie and Chris Sturm, from Texas (United States) who two weeks after learning that they were expecting four babies, received horrible news: the pregnant woman had a brain tumor , and needed to undergo surgery to remove it.
Katie had surgery before her babies were born at 32 weeks gestation .
“I cried for two days”
When she was three months pregnant, Katie, a 27-year-old nurse, was working when she suffered a seizure. She was transferred to UT Southwestern Hospital, where she was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain and spinal tumor.
The mother explains that when they told her, everything seemed surreal: “It was hard to believe.” To the news that they were going to have quadruplets, was added the fear of the tumor.
But after removing it and holding her children in her arms, Katie says that seeing them for the first time “was something special, amazing.”
Eighteen weeks after the intervention and in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, the babies were born by cesarean section on July 3, at 32 weeks of pregnancy. The mother tested negative on the PCR test, so the doctors did not have to make any major changes to the delivery and it happened without a hitch. This is stated by the obstetrician Patricia Santiago-Muñoz, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies, although more than 20 doctors, nurses and medical personnel were involved in the delivery.
“The delivery couldn’t have gone better. After all the routine preparation and other precautions, everything went smoothly. All four babies were born healthy.”
Posted by Katie Sturm on Saturday, September 12, 2020
A natural multiple birth
But everything about this birth is amazing, since Katie conceived her babies naturally, when the odds of having quadruplets like this is one in every 700,000 births.
The obstetrician who attended the delivery adds that this multiple birth is all the more surprising because, at age 16, Katie was diagnosed with primary ovarian failure and was assured that she would not be able to have biological children.
But science was wrong, since in addition to newborns, she has a three-year-old son, Ryan. His brothers Austin, Daniel, Jacob and Hudson weighed between 1,587 and 1,950 grams. They stayed in the NICU to gain weight, improve breathing capacity, and learn to feed from a bottle. The first of them went home a week after they were born and the last only seven weeks later.
“The children really did develop better than you would expect from babies born at 32 weeks,” explains pediatrician Becky Ennis, medical director of the NICU at the hospital center where the children were born.
Also the father of the quadruplets, Chris Sturm, 33, is amazed at what this learning has meant:
“You’re never really ready for four babies. I don’t know if I was ready for one. There’s no parenting manual, so you find out as you go.”
He assures that “it has been a great experience”:
“With everything that is going on, it is good not to have to worry so much about the children because I know that we are in good hands.”
Regarding Katie’s brain tumor (glioma), experts are optimistic that, “although they have a tendency to recur, early intervention has been shown to improve both the quantity and the quality of life .” This is pointed out by Dr. Toral Patel, who explains that “of the various types of glioma, the young mother has a favorable subtype, and I am optimistic about her future treatment options.”
The parents and the little ones are already at home for the enjoyment of their older brother , who is happy to have them.
Route and photos | UT Southwestern Hospital
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