Doctors put the odds of having identical quadruplets at about one in 15 million — which makes Mercedes and Jonathan Sandhu very special. The couple in Texas welcomed four identical girls on May 1.
Hannah Grace, Lucy Marie, Rebecca Claire, and Petra Anne were delivered via cesarean section at 29 weeks gestation. The smallest was Petra, who weighed in at 2 pounds, 7 ounces, while Hannah, the largest, was born at 2 pounds, 13 ounces.
Mercedes, 34, and Jonathan, 37, who are both engineers, are also parents of Luke, 3, and Aaron, 18 months.
The four sisters joined brothers Aaron, 18 months, and Luke, 3. Courtesy Mercedes and Jonathan Sandhu
Mercedes’s third pregnancy came as a surprise.
“So we weren’t trying by any means, but we were excited. We loved the idea of giving our boys another sibling,” Mercedes tells TODAY.com. “But when we found out there were four … Holy moly!”
“Holy moly!” Jonathan agrees.
There are roughly 72 documented cases of spontaneous identical quadruplets in medical history. Spontaneous means that the babies were conceived without reproductive assistance.
DNA testing confirmed that the Sandhu sisters are identical, but Jonathan says the family is waiting for a final placenta examination to be 100% certain.
Mercedes couldn’t believe her eyes when four sacs appeared on the ultrasound screen.
Mercedes was just seven weeks into her pregnancy when she says “four little blobs” appeared on the ultrasound screen.
“Since it was my third pregnancy, I told Jonathan that he didn’t have to come to my appointment. I was like, ‘There will be plenty of scans,’” she recalls. “So I’m there without him, and I’m laughing and then I’m crying. I’m a little bit hysterical. And my doctor goes, ‘Let’s call your husband!’”
Jonathan thought Mercedes was playing a practical joke on him.
“He kept asking, ‘Are you serious?’” she recalls. The news began to sink in when Mercedes’ OB-GYN began explaining the risks of carrying quadruplets.
“I tried not to think about the negative outcomes too much because that doesn’t do you any good,” Mercedes says.
Jonathan says they shifted their mindset to look at the situation in a more positive light.
“The odds of conceiving identical quadruplets is mind-blowing,” Jonathan says. “So the odds of them making it through anything is a slam dunk compared to that.”
Still, Mercedes and Jonathan breathed a deep sigh of relief when Hannah, Lucy, Rebecca and Petra were born on May 1.
“The pregnancy was high-risk for Mercedes, too, and I was crying in the delivery room because it was like, ‘Everyone is safe. We made it,’” he says.
The babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Texas Children’s Hospital. All are on CPAP machines to help them breathe, and they are eating through feeding tubes. Doctors are optimistic that the girls will be home by July — and you can follow their journey on the Sandhus‘ Instagram page.
Mercedes and Jonathan will celebrate their five-year wedding anniversary on May 18.
“I told my husband that the babies are my five-year gift to him,” she says. “Pretty hard to top!”
