JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — The Mississippi woman who gave birth to identical quadruplets more than a week wants to get four girls home.
Kimberly Fugate was expecting triplets when she went to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Miss. The babies, all girls, arrived Feb. 8, just shy of 13 weeks premature. For now she looks at them as they sleep in incubators.
“It was one surprise after another,” she has said in interviews. “They had delivered three babies and I heard them say ‘More feet’ and I said ‘No.'”
It’s been a whirlwind since. UMMC has been deluged with media calls and well-wishers.
Fugate and her husband, Craig, started a Facebook page “Fugate Quadruplets” with pictures for the four girls and their sister, 10-year-old Katelyn.
Doctors at UMMC said the girls will be expected to say in the natal intensive care unit until their original due date, which for the Fugates is May 2. But when they go home will depend on how the babies develop over the next 3 months.
The four tiny sisters– Kenleigh Rosa, Kristen Sue, Kayleigh Pearl and Kelsey Roxanne — are all named, in part, for family members.
Dr. James Bofill, professor of maternal fetal medicine, said the odds of spontaneous quadruplets are 1 in 729,000. But in the Fugates’ case, the odds are even smaller because their girls split from a single fertilized egg.
“We’ve seen quadruplets here before, but we’ve never seen identical quadruplets,” Bofill said. “That’s what makes this case so unique and unusual.”
The girls, were all 14 inches long and weighed between 2 pounds 1 ounce and 2 pounds 8 ounces when they were born.
Fugate has been staying at the Ronald McDonald House to be near the girls. The family lives in Jayess in southwest Mississippi.
