Imagine being told you were going to have twins and ending up with quadruplets. Imagine being pregnant with four babies and knowing that your husband's Reserve unit was going to be called up at any moment. Imagine that your babies, conceived without the aid of fertility drugs, ended up being two sets of identical twins – a one in 25 million occurrence.

That's exactly what happened to Christina and Patrick Tetrick.

The Big News
It all started innocently enough: A grainy sonogram picture showed twins, and Christina couldn't wait to tell her husband. "We were both so thrilled; we just started calling everyone!" says Christina from her Wichita, Kan., home.

A follow-up ultrasound was scheduled for the next week, and the Tetricks were eager to see the babies. But even then, Christina had this odd feeling there were more than just two babies. "I was so big that I was sure there were more than two," says Christina. "Everyone thought that I was nuts for even thinking about it."

Before the ultrasound, the doctor asked the Tetricks if they wanted to know the babies’ sexes. Christina replied she wanted to know the count, and if the doctor happened to know the genders, that would be fine, too. The doctor laughed and began scanning. "After she just kept going back and forth for over a minute without saying anything I started to panic," says Christina, who thought something must be wrong with the babies. "I said, ‘OK, you have to say something.’ And she said, ‘Honey, you've got four babies in there.’”

Christina and Patrick watched in disbelief as the doctor slowly counted heads. Christina remembers being very excited for about a half an hour, until the tech started measuring and everyone got quiet. "I started to realize the implications," says Christina. "I couldn't work. In fact, I wouldn't be able to work for years. Patrick hadn't graduated college yet, and we had just bought a house on both of our incomes."

Patrick instinctively knew the exact moment Christina started becoming overwhelmed and squeezed her hand. "Let's just enjoy the moment for today," he told her. "Everything will work out."

Christina and Patrick had been married for only six months when the news of quadruplets came their way. Patrick is an army reservist and, not long after they heard they would soon be a family of six, his unit was activated. "About a week after we found out about the four babies, we found out that Patrick was on ‘alert,’ which means to be ready in case of an activation," says Christina. "We pretty much just held our breath for the next few weeks, and sure enough, he was activated with his Army Reserve unit, the 346th Military Police, on January 14, 2002."

Special Care
Christina's early pregnancy was treated like a normal pregnancy, because they didn't find out about the multiple birth until she was 17 weeks. "I started seeing a specialist immediately after we found out," she says.

For Christina, being pregnant with multiples meant weekly doctor visits with ultrasounds each time. "My pregnancy was very abnormal compared to other higher-order multiple pregnancies," says Christina. "I had no problems besides the above-average feeling of being exhausted and out of breath and having a lot of swelling."

In fact, Christina was surprised when she went into pre term labor at 29 weeks, even though this is the average birth week for quadruplets. "I was so sure that I would go longer because of the luck I had had with the pregnancy," she says. "It was so subtle that I didn't even know that I was going into labor. In fact, I'm quite sure that if another mom of multiples hadn't been visiting me and realized that I was going into labor, I would not have made it to the hospital!"

Christina thought she was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions until her friend began counting the contractions. After 10 in an hour, they decided to go to the hospital. Christina's greatest fear was that the babies were coming too early, and Patrick wasn't there. He was stationed two and a half hours away at a Ft. Riley, Kan., military base. After a panicked trip home, Patrick arrived at the hospital – and all contractions stopped. Christina, however, was advised to stay at the hospital on bed rest.

The Waiting Game
"I started crying," says Christina. "I just didn't know which was worse, being locked up in the house, depending on an ambulance, or being locked up in one room for what could possibly be weeks!"

To understand Christina's frustration you have to understand what her life was like before quads. At age 15, she got her first job and began working full time at 16. She worked full time through high school and college while taking a full load of classes. In 1998, she graduated from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville with a bachelor's degree in engineering. After graduating, she threw herself into her job, working long hours and enjoying every minute of it. To be told she was going to have to be on bed rest for what could be weeks was difficult.

Through the support of her friends and family, she was able to make it through that trying time. Her mom arrived to be with her, and her former employer brought her a laptop computer so she could keep up with her e-mail and her new multiple-mom friends. And as it turned out, Christina was getting so large that it wasn't very long before she didn't want to get out of bed anyway. "I was completely exhausted walking to the bathroom and back," she says. "But what kept me going every day was that I knew that one more day in my belly kept the babies out of the NICU for three days."

The Big Day
Christina had been instructed to tell her nurse if she experienced more than six contractions in an hour. On the morning of April 5, 2002, she had eight, but didn't really believe it was time, so she waited another hour before calling the nurse.

"About 2 p.m. they carted me down to Labor and Delivery," says Christina. "I was still at 2 centimeters, but the doctor said to get Patrick on his way, because once it started to move, it would be very fast. An hour later they checked me, and I was 4 centimeters and the doctor could feel a bulging sac. The good news was that this time it was for real; the bad news was that the babies were coming now, no time to wait for Patrick."

There were 32 people in the delivery room. Besides her mother and mother-in-law, there was Christina’s doctor with at least three residents and half a dozen nurses. Each baby had his own team of nurses and neonatal experts. "I was wheeled into the operating room at about 4 p.m., and the babies were born at 4:33, 4:34, 4:34 and 4:35,” she says. “Pat arrived about 4:45. Like any mother giving birth to premature babies, I was so afraid that I wouldn't hear them crying when they came out. When they did, it was the most beautiful sound in the world."

Parker was the biggest of the babies at 4 pounds, 1.7 ounces, and his twin, Peyton, weighed 4 pounds, 6 ounces. The next set of twins to be born was Christian at 3 pounds, 9.5 ounces, and his twin, Camden at 3 pounds, 8 ounces.

Soon after the first set of twins arrived home from the hospital and before the other set was strong enough to be discharged, Patrick was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Coping with quads alone was a challenge for Christina, but her mother moved in with her, and she had help from friends. But the most important thing for her were the messages of encouragement from Patrick.

"My husband has been a rock that has been there to lean on,” she says. “There are lots of phone calls and e-mails from Patrick telling me how he supports me and what a great job I'm doing. I’m just counting the months for him to come home!"

Want to see more?

• Ahead of Schedule: What to Expect When Your Multiples Are Premature
• I Wish Someone Had Told Me How to Survive the Bed Rest Blues
• To start your very own multiples diary click here!
• Talk about it!