BABY UPDATE: Five beautiful miracles (5:25 p.m.)

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December 21, 2006

BY DANA SCHAUMBURG The Commercial-News Thu Dec 21, 2006, 05:23 PM CST

ST. LOUIS — While family members headed over to see the Ferrill Five in the nursery, their mother recovered with a few other supporters by her bedside.

The quintuplets were born at 31 weeks this afternoon to Pete and Jenny Ferrill of Danville, and the family couldn’t be happier with the turnout.

The three boys, Landyn Konner, Layne Mykel and Drayden Karter, and the two girls, Irelyn Kadyn and Kieran Skye, came back to the delivery room to see Jenny before they were taken to the nursery.

“I think the way you can sum it up is this is the most amazing experience ever,” Jenny said as she thought back over the past few hours.

“I just feel like we’ve been blessed with five beautiful miracles.”

Jenny was able to hear them crying. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hear them as they were born.

“I think it was just a huge relief to hear them and to know that that’s one of the indications that they are doing well,” she said.

Dr. Joseph Shumway, co-surgeon on the delivery, came in to see how Jenny is doing.

He explained the babies were in five separate placentas and came from five fertilized eggs.

“Those five different placentas shared the uterine cavity,” he said, adding the babies had to naturally grow in ways to allow them to have a shared blood supply, allowing them all to grow appropriately.

“They’ve all been the same weight times five,” Dr. Shumway said.

That is one reason Jenny was able to carry them this long.

“She made the most amazing patient we’ve ever had.”

Dr. Shumway saw the fortitude and a calmness in Jenny that helped her reach this point.

“It made it bearable,” he said, adding she had a lot of support here to help her.

“Jenny decided to have a good attitude.”

The babies scored well for fetal color, tone, respiration, heart rate and reflexes.

The babies are on breathing equipment now, but doctors hope to take them off soon. Jenny will get to see them in the morning.

“Just everybody’s support is completely amazing. That just made us feel reassured,” she added.

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BABY UPDATE: Five beautiful miracles (5:25 p.m.)

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