This Mom's Before-And-After Quadruplets Photo Is Truly Incredible
The female body. It's simply amazing.
New Jersey parents Syman and Lindsay Hay have their hands full with five children under 5 years of age.
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Their son Carson is 4 years old, and their quadruplets — Caiden Michael, Madison Grace, Lucas William, and Grayson James — are 7 months old.
BuzzFeed spoke to Lindsay, who said she was put on an injectable hormone called Follistim after being told she had poor egg quality. "The theory behind the drugs was that if I produced more than one egg each cycle, I’d 'catch' a good one faster. We were to try this, plus timed intercourse six times, before moving on to IVF. I conceived the quads on Cycle 3 of this treatment," she said.
When she and her husband first found out they were having quadruplets, they were in complete shock. "I was in a lot of denial because I was told I had poor egg quality, and I just couldn’t believe it. My husband was silent and white as a ghost," she said, adding, "I honestly didn’t think the pregnancy would progress, and prepared myself for miscarriage. There was just a lot of uncertainty, fear, and surprise."
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Lindsay conceived the quadruplets after suffering several miscarriages. She said she had a "miscarriage mindset," explaining that, even after conceiving again, she was still not fully convinced she was going to be able to meet her babies. "You carry the pain of miscarriage with you wherever you go, and even after being on the other side with my rainbow babies here, it still hurts. I don’t think I’ll ever fully heal. It’s definitely made me stronger, though, and given me new perspective and appreciation for just how big of a miracle these babies and all babies really are."
Lindsay decided to start sharing photos of her pregnancy journey with the quads on Instagram.
She said her pregnancy was very difficult. "I’m grateful that I’m a person who genuinely loves pregnancy. Otherwise, it would have been a lot harder to cope with. During the first trimester, I was so sick I couldn’t function. With four babies and four placentas, my hormones, fatigue, and nausea were quadrupled. I was extremely anxious and would wait until midnight every night to celebrate making it through another day," she said.
At around 20 weeks, Lindsay said, her cervix started thinning. "I was terrified and convinced I was going to lose them. But I didn’t. I kept pressing on and eventually made it to 30 weeks and four days!"
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Lindsay said, "The day my doctor said it was time was probably the first time I truly believed they’d be mine. There’s really no comparing it to my singleton pregnancy. With Carson, I was blissfully unaware of all that could go wrong and enjoyed every moment."
Lindsay and Syman's quads were in the NICU for about seven weeks, and then they all went home happy and healthy. Oh, and she breastfed all of them!!!
She recently decided to share a before-and-after quads photo on Instagram, where it has generated nearly 70,000 likes. I mean, WOW:
And her caption for the post couldn't be more perfect:
