Michael Carmack had a tough time talking his wife, Hannah, into having a second child.
“Imagine how she reacted when she found out we were having four!” Michael told TODAY.com
Wow! Michael and Hannah Carmack ought to buy a lottery ticket. The odds of having two sets of identical twins in the same birth without fertility treatments, as Hannah Carmack did, is about 1 in 70 million.https://t.co/jSA7J7QyTG
— AL.com (@aldotcom) May 9, 2023
The odds of conceiving spontaneous quadruplets is rare (between 1 in 512,000 to 1 in 677,000, according to the Journal of Family and Reproductive Health). The fact that they had two sets of identical twins makes their situation “incredibly rare,” Dr. Meghana Limaye, MD, maternal-fetal medicine specialist in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at NYU Langone Health.
The Carmacks discovered the news at their very first ultrasound. Mom, Hannah, a veterinary technician, was the first to spot two amniotic sacs on the screen.
“She was like, ‘Twins?’ But the ultrasound tech didn’t respond. Then Hannah goes, ‘Is it three?’ Then the ultrasound tech put her hand on Hannah’s knee and said, ‘Sweetie, it’s four,’” Michael recalls. “I started laughing. Hannah started to cry.”
Those tears weren’t happy ones either—Hannah hadn’t exactly planned on growing her family that much, or that quickly.
“You know, I always wanted a big family, but that wasn’t Hannah’s dream,” Michael, a drug and rehabilitation counselor, explains. The couple are also parents of an 8-year-old daughter named Emily.
Micheal called their pastor immediately after the scan to schedule an emergency meeting.
“He thought we were getting divorced,” Michael says, with a laugh.
Of course, that was the last thing on their mind. Instead, the couple spent a little more than an hour discussing their feelings about growing their family from three to seven.
“What I think Hannah came to realize is, ‘This is not normal. We had been chosen for something by God,” Michael says.
The couple says they left the meeting feeling “strong and united.” Months later, they are enjoying time with their tiny bundles of joy—Evelyn, Adeline, David, and Daniel. All born at 27 weeks gestation, the little ones still need assistance with eating. All four babies are growing in leaps and bounds.
“Evelyn just got transitioned to a crib two days ago,” Michael says, noting that all the babies are now breathing on their own and “doing great.”
“Hannah persuades the nurses to let her hold more than one baby at a time because she knows how important it is for them to hear and feel her,” Michael gushes. “She has a connection with these babies like no one else.”
At two months old, they are even developing their own little personalities. Evelyn is the “sweet, smiley one.”
“We thought she was going to be tough, because in the womb she was always kicking her sister in the head,” Michael says.
And the dynamic between Daniel and Adeline is interesting to watch, Michael says.
“They’re in the same room and he’s always trying to get closer to her. He loves her, and she’s like cutting her eyes at him,” Michael says. “When we did skin-to-skin with them, she’d always be trying to inch away from him.”
The quads are expected to remain in the hospital until their due date in June. When not spending time with the babies or their 8-year-old daughter, mom, and dad work on renovations to their 1200-square-foot house. Hannah works nights to help cover the costs. The couple also has a GoFundMe page to raise additional money.
