The Ferraro family is having one wild ride when it comes to having children. It actually takes a 12-seat “monster van” for them to get around these days. In fact, it took a team of 20 different medical professionals just to deliver Katie Ferraro’s second pregnancy.
Meet The Ferraro FamilyqKatie and Charlie are your typical California parents. She’s a dietician running an online business, and he’s in the aviation industry. They began their family with daughter Molly, but, when they decided to add to their family, they went big.
Katie defied a lot of odds and statistics when she became pregnant with quadruplets via natural fertilization. Neither side of the family had any history of multiples. So, the news was quite shocking for the Ferraro family.
Learning she had a quadruplet pregnancy was also very alarming due to the dangers and high risk for complications. Katie’s obstetrician and medical specialists told her that she’d have a 50 percent chance of health risks and premature delivery with such a high risk pregnancy.
Selective reduction, whereby one or more of the fetuses would be removed, was offered, but the Ferraro family decided to move forward as-is with all four intact.
It’s not uncommon for women carrying multiples to be placed on early bed rest due to the load of the fetuses on the mother’s body. Many in this situation spend over half of their pregnancy living in the hospital. Not Katie, though. At almost 31 weeks, Katie was still at home carrying for Molly, her then one-year-old daughter.
Even on bedrest or living at the hospital, carrying multiples is precarious in terms of delivery. It often takes double the staff just to deal with a twin delivery. So, Katie’s medical team at Sharp Healthcare didn’t know an exact time or date, but they did know they had to be prepared to deliver quadruplets at a moment’s notice.
When Katie was 34 weeks pregnant, her team decided to schedule a C-section rather than continue to risk that moment’s notice for a term delivery. It took 20 medical professionals, but Katie safely delivered her quadruplets – Charlie, Claire, Henry & Dillon – without complication.
Ironically, Katie’s third pregnancy resulted in twins named Gus & Hannah. You can follow the Ferraro family on Instagram to see what they’re up to today.