Little Abigail wears green earrings, Emily’s are purple, Grace has red ones and McKayla sports pink studs.
The four girls’ different-coloured earrings help their parents tell them apart. That’s because the 16-month-old babies are identical quadruplets.
More than a year after the babies’ were delivered at Edmonton’s Lois Hole Hospital for Women, it’s the nurses and staff who were using the girls’ earrings for guidance during a touching reunion on Tuesday.
Bethani and Tim Webb told CTV Edmonton they brought their four bundles of joy back to the hospital so staff and nurses there could see the girls again.
“We were here for so long and it just felt like they [the staff] were an extended part of our family,” Bethani gushed. “We just had to come back and we wanted to show them the girls.”
The quadruplets made headlines last year when Bethani gave birth to the four naturally-conceived identical girls by C-section at 33 weeks. The odds of having identical quadruplets, where one egg has split four ways, are about one in every 15 million pregnancies.
“We deal with all the pregnancies that are high risk so all we ever want is to have healthy moms and healthy babies,” Lorna Clark, a hospital unit manager, said of the memorable experience ushering four identical babies into the world. “So to have this and to see how well they’re doing is very exciting.”
That excitement was palpable as the nurses and staff took turns holding the adorable girls and gathering around as the energetic quadruplets babbled and crawled around the hospital wearing their matching jumpers.
The young parents from the village of Hythe, Alta., located approximately 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, spent about a month and a half in the hospital before Bethani gave birth so they were very familiar with the support staff and their surroundings when they returned.
“The view’s the same. The atmosphere here is awesome, it’s the same, but our lives have taken a 360 [degree turn]” Tim joked.
“There’s almost no point in cleaning the house all day because you get something clean and they come and destroy it,” Bethani added with a laugh.
Despite the craziness at home, Tim’s not ruling out having any more children.
“I say, ‘Never say never,’” he said.
Before that day comes, however, the couple is more than happy with the four they have.
“Four crazy, 16-month-olds… I couldn’t imagine life without them,” Bethani said.
With a report from CTV Edmonton’s Carmen Leibel
