When Liz Breach feels her unborn twins kick, she can not only tell which one it is, she also knows which of her two wombs the baby is growing in. The New Zealand mom, who discovered that she has two completely separate wombs a rare condition called uterus didelphys when she was a teenager, later successfully carryied her two sons, Trent, 7, and Logan, 3, in her right womb.

When she became pregnant again earlier this year, Liz, 32, couldn’t wait to find out which womb was housing her baby. Thrilled at the news of an addition to the family, her husband Jason, 39, offered to take time off work and come along to the ultrasound scan.

”But I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, so I went alone,” recalls Liz.

However when the five-million-to-one bombshell was revealed, she immediately wished Jason had been at her side.

“The doctor asked how I would react if he told me I was having twins and that there was a baby in each womb,” says Liz. “I told him it wasn’t funny.”

The babies are due in the new year! We wish this family good luck.

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{ZUMA}

On Sunday night an unidentified Omaha couple became the proud parents to Nebraska’s second ever set of quintuplets at Bergan Mercy Medical Center.

Arriving by C-Section, the two boys and three girls arrived at 30 weeks gestation, each weighing roughly two pounds.

Confirming the multiple births yesterday, Dr. Michael Barsoom said that the quints he delivered were doing “very well.”

“Everything is as good as can be expected,” said Barsoom, Alegent Health’s director of maternal fetal medicine.

The parents don’t want names or personal family details released. They have declined interviews. They don’t even want to say where they live or the gender of the babies. (The World-Herald learned the breakdown of boys and girls).

Barsoom said he understands their hesitation. The children were born just shy of 30 weeks.

At that age, “you can’t be guaranteed the babies are going to be absolutely healthy,” he said. “God forbid . . . something happens. The best thing is to wait until the babies are ready to go home and then introduce them to the world.”

The Doctor also revealed that the quintuplets were conceived after the mother had undergone “one dose, one cycle of fertility pills.”

(No in vitro fertilization, which involves joining eggs and sperm in a petri dish, or intrauterine insemination, which involves injections of sperm into the uterus, were involved, he said.)

To wind up with five babies after that limited therapy, Barsoom said, was “completely unexpected.  I don’t think it’s ever been reported in literature,” he added.

While a few, but not all, of the babies are on ventilators, the doctor expects the quints to stay in hospital for the next 6-10 weeks.

Maybe they will be home for the Holiday Season!

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More sadness today for Amanda and Thomas Stansel after their fourth sextuplet was disconnected from life support last night.

According to the couple’s blog, Ashlyn had been fighting a nasty form of pneumonia call Yeast pneumonia for about a month.

On Saturday night Amanda wrote:

Ashlyn is not doing well at all. Her kidney function is getting worse. She is in renal failure and this is making the edema worse. The doctor said that her kidneys are beyond the point to where they could get better. They are just too far gone. They had to increase the ventilator settings to provide more support. She is just not doing well overall. This has been so hard. It hurts to see her so sick. We hoped and prayed that she would get better, but it is just not the Lord’s will for her.

The decision to withdraw care was made last night after the tiny baby’s oxygen saturation had dropped into the 50’s and 60’s(a healthy person’s O2 Sat’s are usually 99). The lower the number, the more oxygen needed from the ventilator to compensate.

Thomas and Amanda welcomed their sextuplets just over 2 months ago, weighing between 12.3 ounces and 1 pound, 2 ounces at 23 weeks gestation. Just a couple days after their arrival the couple lost Dallin and Katelyn, followed by Braden a few weeks later.

While this has been a rough journey for the couple they are still very optimistic about the 2 remaining babies; Hailey and Rachel.

Amanda blogged that:

• Haley is now weighing in at four pounds even and is 14 1/2 inches long. Haley I think has surprised the doctors with how well she is doing especially after having surgery 3 days ago.
• Little Rachel(pictured with Amanda) continues to grow and flourish each day. She weighs 3 lbs 7 oz and is 14 inches long. She is tolerating her feeds very well, she continues to eat like a champ. She loves to lay on her belly, she does much better with her oxygen saturation’s on her belly than her back.

We hope and pray that Haley and Rachel continue to grow and develop, so that we can bring them both home some day soon.

I also hope that they are able to bring these two girls home as well. Because both babies are still vented, they may just be home in time for the Holiday Season.

Exciting news in the North!

New York couple Bridgett Maskell and John Mistalski are the proud parents of 5 tiny little babies. The three girls and two boys arrived at just twenty five weeks gestation on Thursday afternoon at the at Women and Children’s Hospital in Buffalo.

The new mom was hoping to deliver the babies closer to her January due date. However on Thursday, “all of a sudden, my heart starting beating really, really fast and I couldn’t breathe then contraction, after contraction, so I knew she was going to deliver them,” said Maskell.

Dr. Stephanie Mann said a team was set up for each baby in the delivery room.

As for their prognosis, Dr. Mann said, “for 25 weekers, they’re actually doing as expected. All of the babies are on respiratory support.”

The largest baby weighs just under two pounds, the smallest is just shy of one pound.

Now that the size of the family has jumped from four to nine, the parents are scrambling to get necessary items like car seats and a vehicle to transport the entire family.

Bridget and John also have a set of twins at home.

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Exciting news in India. A 24-year old mother has welcomed the first all-male set of quintuplets, incidentally, also the lone surviving set in India. Sabira Khan delivered the five babies yesterday at 28 weeks gestation by C-section in just 3 minutes.

“The set was conceived naturally. This, apart from being the first survivor set in India, is the eleventh all-male set and the seventeenth set of natural conception in the world,” said Dr Suchitra Pandit, the gynaecologist who operated upon Sabira. The average weight of the babies is 800 grams.

Their proud mom was happy that the operation was successful but wished that at least one of the five was a baby girl. Her husband Ubed, who runs a garment shop, was also happy with his bundles of joy.

“Today is Jumma (Friday). And it was on a Jumma when I got to know my wife was pregnant with five babies. I am very happy. We will be able to afford their upbringing,” he told reporters.

Two of the babies are on ventilators, the rest are in the NICU to gain strength and weight. Doctors expect them to stay in the hospital for 6-8 weeks.

Citing statistics, the spokesperson said that only 16 sets of quintuplets have been born without ovulation-inducing drugs in the world so far.

‘Ours is the 17th one in the world. In India, there have been five sets of quintuplets out of which two were stillborn, the third and fourth set were born but died within two hours. The fourth set of quintuplets were delivered at Lucknow but they were undiagnosed and two died,’ he said.

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It’s hard to believe that its been 2 years since Karoline and Ben Byler welcomed Florida’s first set of surviving sextuplets.

Brady Christopher, Eli Benjamin, Ryan Patrick, Jackson Robert, Charlie Craig and lone girl MacKenzie Margaret arrived more than 2 months early on September 1, 2007 weighing between two and three pounds each.

At the time, the babies arrival drew worldwide media attention, including an exclusive contract with Inside Edition for Karoline and her husband, Ben.

Their births were so high profile, they helped inspire the design of Bayfront’s new Baby Place, set to open this December.

Two years later Ben and Karoline have their hands full.

Now the fenced back yard looks like a preschool, with big kid swings, ride-on toys and stray sippy cups scattered across the lawn. Florida’s first surviving sextuplets have become toddlers. “That was our stimulus check,” mom Karoline said of the playground equipment. “But it was a good investment.”

For the most part, the children are healthy. All get therapy for speech delays, which is common for multiples, who often are premature and who copy each other’s mispronunciations, a phenomenon known as “twin talk.”

Charlie, who required oxygen even when he came home from the hospital, has asthma. He also has a condition that makes him unable to tolerate food textures, so he still eats the pureed stuff.

Ryan, whose condition was critical at one point shortly after the birth, has mild cerebral palsy and was the last to walk. He began taking steps in June. He wears special shoes and gets therapy to help with a slight limp.

They all excel at different things.

• MacKenzie is the agile one, climbing on everything at Gymboree.
• Eli has the best fine motor skills and enjoys puzzles and small toys.
• Charlie can already perform a broad jump.
• Brady can completely undress himself without assistance, sometimes to his parents’ embarrassment.
• Jackson, whom his parents call “the professor,” has to thoroughly investigate anything before he’ll get involved in it.
• Ryan is the biggest eater. Karoline calls him the human garbage pail.

Karoline’s meeting with Kate Gosselin connection:

Earlier this year, Karoline loaded up the sixpack and took them to meet reality television star and fellow sextuplet mom Kate Gosselin at a book signing in Sarasota.

She spent 45 minutes in line, hoping for a nugget of wisdom from the star of Jon & Kate Plus 8.

When her turn came, Karoline said, Gosselin barely looked at them.

“She asked me why I brought all the kids,” Karoline said. “Then she just moved onto the next person.”

Karoline later wondered if Gosselin’s snub had anything to do with revelations about Jon’s relationship with another woman. Or perhaps it was just her celebrity.

“Maybe she forgets that she was in my position four or five years ago,” Karoline said. She used to watch the show but refuses now “because it’s all about their divorce.”

While the Bylers realize they could have pursued their own show, they say they value their privacy and they want the kids to grow up as normal as possible.

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An expert panel on infertility and adoption, appointed by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty last summer, is recommending that the Ontario government provide funding for up to three cycles of in vitro fertilization for women under the age of 42.

The group said the high cost of fertility treatments is leading to decisions which result in an unacceptable high rate of multiple births in Ontario.

One in six couples will struggle with infertility and the greatest barrier to assisted reproduction services is the cost, with one cycle of IVF costing about $10,000.

To increase chances of success, women and couples choose to have more than one embryo transferred, say the authors of the report. As a result, the rate of multiple births from assisted reproduction was 27.5 per cent in 2006, compared to rates below 10 per cent in other jurisdictions with controls on the number of embryos transferred, they say.

The report recommends the province require all IVF clinics and fertility centres to be accredited and, as a condition of accreditation, required to reduce their multiple birthrate to 15 per cent within five years and 10 per cent within 10 years.

The province could save $400 million to $550 million in health-care costs over the next 10 years by reducing the number of multiple births from assisted reproduction, the panel said.

“Over a period of years, the savings from those multiple birth incidents would more than cover the cost of public funding of three cycles of IVF,” said panel chairman David Johnston, president of the University of Waterloo.

Dalton McGuinty said this week the government is reviewing the recommendations.

“The reason that we asked for the report to be prepared is because we believe that there is a real issue, we believe that it is a growing concern to families — and particularly to women — who are having difficulty getting pregnant. And that’s an issue for all of us,” McGuinty said.

“We want to lend a hand, but we want to do it in a way, again, that is something we can manage financially.”

Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia fund IVF treatments. Quebec announced this year it would fund three IVF cycles. Ontario scaled back funding for IVF in 1994 to only cover women suffering from blocked Fallopian tubes.

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Just 2 weeks after welcoming their 6 tiny babies, Amanda and Thomas Stansel are coping with the loss of another baby.

Braden Thomas passed away early yesterday after fighting a staph infection in his windpipe.

The couple took to their blog to discuss their last minutes with Braden saying,

“We were able to hold him during his last moments. How special that was for us. He is a perfect angel. We are so grateful for the 2 weeks we did get to spend with him. We are so emotionally drained and exhausted. This has been so hard for us to lose 3 of our children within two weeks.”

The surviving babies, Rachel Diane, Haley Karin and Ashlyn Louise, fight on.

Their nutrition comes intravenously because their intestines aren’t developed . Their risk of infection remains high. They are expected to remain on ventilators for several months. Brain hemorrhages in all three girls could have lasting effects, such as cerebral palsy or mental retardation.

Rachel is doing the best: She has the least-serious hemorrhage, and it’s on just one side of her head.

The babies haven’t grown much since birth. Each remains about a pound.

The couple has refrained from releasing pictures of the newborns and hasn’t allowed the media to view or photograph the children.

Even with all they’ve endured, the Stansels wouldn’t do anything differently.

Not the choice to become parents. Not the fertility treatments. Not the choice to proceed with a six-baby pregnancy, rather than reduce to fewer fetuses.

“Not in a heartbeat, we wouldn’t have,” Thomas Stansel said. “We’ll let God handle that. Not us.”

My heart goes out to this couple. We pray that the remaining babies continue to grow and stay healthy.

I was a wreck during my time in the NICU with one baby. I cannot imagine how they were doing it with 6 – now 3.

SOURCE

Health officials are saying today that a Tunisian woman’s claim of being pregnant with 12 babies is a farce.

Dr. Mongi Hamrouni, head of the ministry’s public health department, said he was “more than 99 percent” sure the woman claiming to be expecting six boys and six girls has a mental problem.

Medical experts were dispatched to the central city of Gafsa where the 30-year-old woman resides, but she again refused to be examined, another health ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Mansour Hamhoum, a regional health official in charge of Gafsa, said he could not locate any medical records of the pregnancy in the city hospital.

The woman’s lawyer Lotsi Smat said she’s a former Arabic language teacher. Smat said he also doubted the woman’s claim after she refused to show him an ultrasound confirming her pregnancy.

Health experts say a 12-baby pregnancy is next to impossible. They believe the woman could be experiencing a “phantom pregnancy,” a rare condition where a woman believes she is pregnant and can actually develop symptoms consistent with pregnancy, like a swelling abdomen, missing a period or feeling that a baby is moving inside her.

This reminds me of the woman faked being pregnant with quints a couple of years ago. She was outed after a doctor came to check up on her and she ran!

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The SUN is reporting that a Tunisian mom will soon to deliver a record-breaking 12 BABIES.

The teacher, who is expecting six boys and six girls, conceived the batch of babies following fertility treatment, after suffering a number of miscarriages.

British fertility experts confirmed the extraordinary pregnancy in Gafsa, Tunisia, was possible – but carried “colossal” risks.

The mom – who has not yet been named – reportedly told doctors she was “feeling fine and looking forward to hugging her six boys and six girls”.

She is said to be in ‘good health’ but subject to constant medical monitoring.

The father, named in local reports only as Marwan, said: “In the beginning, we thought that my wife would give birth to twins, but more fetuses were discovered. Our joy increased with the growing number.”

He claimed she wanted to give birth naturally, but medical experts claimed this would be impossible.

The Tunisian health and social ministries have said they will offer various forms of assistance to the family.

IF this is true, it is irresponsible – not a medical miracle. Last week a Philippines mom gave birth to septuplets at 20 weeks, that only lived for a few hours. A human body was not built to carry this many babies.

Two weeks ago Amanda and Thomas Stansel welcomed sextuplets in Texas. They have already lost two of their babies after complications arose from their premature birth(23 weeks).