Five-year-old Ashley Crandell and her husband made the decision to give their first-born daughter a sibling. However, life had other ideas for the family, and they unexpectedly found themselves with five kids!
After four years of trying, Ashley finally became pregnant through I.U.I. She was pleasantly pleased to learn she was carrying quadruplets! In fact, she said that despite how challenging the pregnancy was, she still has emotional memories of it.
Mom of quadruplets Ashley Crandell remembers exactly what she was feeling when she snapped her final bump photo. “It was bittersweet because I really loved being pregnant. I knew I was going to miss feeling them move around – it was like a party all the time,” Crandell, 37, said. “But at that point, my entire body ʜᴜʀᴛ, especially my back and feet. I could barely walk up the stairs in our house. Everything was swollen.”
On Sept. 16, Crandell posted before-and-after pregnancy photos on Instagram. In the first slide, she’s 31 weeks pregnant and about to leave for the hospital, in the second, she’s 31 weeks postpartum and holding all four kids. “It’s crazy to think they all ever fit in there,” Crandell wrote in part.
Wesley, Emma, Leah and Nora were born ᴘʀᴇᴍᴀᴛᴜʀᴇʟʏ by C-sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ on February 11 and spent 70 days in the ɴᴇᴏɴᴀᴛᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇɴsɪᴠᴇ care unit until they learned to eat and breathe on their own. The fact that the four babies were born ᴘʀᴇᴍᴀᴛᴜʀᴇʟʏ doesn’t reveal anything today! They’ve put on weight, are sitting on their own and crawling at the speed of light, as their parents say.
As for 5-year-old Isla, she enjoys the company of her siblings. “I’m impressed with the way she handled everything,” her mother said. “She likes to feed them and change their diapers and is very involved with them. It’s completely customized, even though the four dimensions command attention wherever we go.”
