With five children under 2, Joanne and Brett have made the record books. Photo / Michelle Fey
All is calm in the Wills household. Three newborn babies are sleeping soundly, another is cradled peacefully in his mum’s arms, and their 22-month-old big brother Peter is playing at her feet. For a household that’s still settling into life with quadruplets and a toddler, things certainly seem very under control.
“It’s not always like this!” says Joanne, welcoming Woman’s Day into her and husband Brett’s Napier home to meet their four little miracles. Fraternal quadruplets Esther, Lucy, Jonathan and Oliver arrived at Wellington Hospital on 13 August, believed to be just the second set born in New Zealand in the past 20 years.
And while daily life is a sleep-deprived blur of nappies, bottles, swaddles and cuddles, Joanne, 35, and Brett, 40, still can’t quite believe how lucky they are to have four happy and healthy babies home after a high-risk pregnancy and eight weeks in hospital.
“It’s hard and we’re definitely tired, but we do feel very blessed,” says Joanne, an IT presales consultant and volunteer Coastguard skipper. “It’s very special to have four babies.”
Now tipping the scales at between 2.5kg and 3.5kg, they’re clearly thriving and more of their little personalities are shining through.
“They’re all quite different,” tells Joanne. “Esther is a real fighter. She’s always been determined to thrive, even though she was so little, while Lucy likes to be heard and she loves her cuddles.”
Meanwhile, Jonathan, the biggest of the four, just gets on with things. “He eats, sleeps and grows so well.” And Oliver is patient and alert. “He’s really interested in the world.”
While the couple never would’ve guessed they’d have five children under 2, Joanne tells us she had an inkling something was different about her second pregnancy from the moment she took a test.
“I had zero morning sickness with Peter, but this time, I felt yucky and unsettled, and that made me a bit suspicious,” she recalls. “I thought it must mean either twins or a girl.”
Indeed, as soon as the scanning wand was placed on her tummy, it was clear there was more than one baby inside. Her shock grew as the radiologist started counting the tiny sacs.
“When she said there were four, it took me a couple of seconds to understand what she meant. I immediately thought, ‘How will I think of four names?!’ I asked if she’d scanned many others with four babies inside and she said I was the first. That’s when I realised just how rare this is.”
Joanne left the appointment in a daze and drove home to break the news to Brett, a former loader operator and tractor driver, now a stay-at-home dad. He remembers, “I thought she was pulling my leg. I seriously thought she was joking.”
Eventually, Joanne showed him the printouts of the scan to prove it. “He went awfully quiet then,” says Joanne.
After sharing their extraordinary news with close family, they did their best to process the enormity of what was coming. Thankfully, both Brett and Joanne grew up in large families, so they weren’t too daunted by the idea.
“I’m one of eight and Joanne is one of five, so we’re not scared of big families,” tells Brett, adding it helped neither he nor his wife are big worriers. “We just go with the flow.”
Despite hers being classed as a high-risk pregnancy, Joanne says she always had faith her babies would survive. The biggest problem, she says, was the lack of space in her womb for four.
Aching joints, endless trips to the bathroom at night and heartburn were just some of the daily reminders of her four little ones growing inside her. “I was huge from pretty early on and it felt like they were having a party in there sometimes. My body had a lot of strain on it.”
At 24 weeks, the family relocated to Ronald McDonald House in Wellington to ensure Joanne was near the hospital if she went into early labour. While she’d hoped to make it to 32 weeks, at 2am on 13 August, while 31 weeks along, she woke up to her waters breaking.
The couple headed straight next door to the labour ward, where the babies were brought into the world via Caesarean over an unforgettable 20-minute period. The smallest baby, Esther, was born first weighing 1.02 kilos, followed soon after by Lucy (1.46kg), Jonathan (1.65kg) and Oliver (1.32kg).
They were whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit and placed in incubators, where they were given oxygen, IV fluids and nutrition. While Brett went to see the babies soon after, it wasn’t until later that night that Joanne was able to meet her quads.
“I was sore from the Caesarean and couldn’t really move or sit up, but I had a little glimpse,” she says. “I was so happy they were OK.”
The following day, Joanne was able to hold her babies, with Esther the first to be placed on her chest. “I’ll never forget that,” grins Joanne. “She was so cute and so little, like a tiny kitten curled up on me. She was very fragile – her arm was as wide as my thumb.”
Over the coming days and weeks, Joanne and Brett spent their days in hospital, learning how to take care of the babies and talking to doctors about their progress. With Peter staying in Auckland with Joanne’s parents, they were able to focus entirely on the quads.
“We felt incredibly lucky because there were people going through much harder things than us,” tells Joanne. “There were a lot of very sick babies. Our babies were doing well – they just needed to grow.”
After 19 days, the family returned to Hawke’s Bay in a Life Flight plane transfer, where the babies were admitted to the special care baby unit at the hospital in Hastings, with Joanne and Brett commuting from home.
A month later, the quads were finally ready to come home. Everything was ready – piles of tiny baby clothes washed and folded, hundreds of nappies, four little “pēpi pod” baby beds lined up in a row and a newly purchased van to drive them back to Napier.
Each day requires a military-style operation to manage feeds, nappy changes and settling. Joanne recently had to ask for an extra rubbish bin from the council to fit the 300 nappies they’re going through each week!
But the couple have been overwhelmed with support, including donations of baby goods and family members staying for a week at a time to lend a hand. Soon they’re hoping to employ a nanny with the government payment provided to families of multiples.
“People have been incredible,” enthuses Joanne. “We’ve had knitting from people we don’t even know, food parcels, meals and lots of baby gear.”
She and Brett are incredibly proud of big brother Peter, who has welcomed his new siblings with open arms. Joanne adds, “He was a bit hesitant to touch them at first, but he’s getting more comfortable now they’re home. He runs up to them, saying, ‘Babies, babies!’ He gives them a cuddle, but sometimes he’ll try to steal one of their dummies to see if they’ll cry, so we have to watch him!”
And just as they have done with Peter, the proud parents are determined to raise their four new babies as individuals.
Joanne insists, “Yes, they’re quads, but they’re also totally separate little humans, and they already have four different personalities and needs. We’re not going to think of them as one collective group. They’re all special and interesting in their own ways.”
While Joanne gave up her beloved Coastguard work at 14 weeks pregnant, she can’t wait to get back into it when the babies are a little older. She’s also planning to return to her full-time sales role at software company TechnologyOne in March, with Brett taking over as primary caregiver.
“He’ll be great,” she smiles.
“I don’t have any worries about that at all. I have visions of him out in the garden with his five little children following behind like ducklings.”
While there’s no doubt it’s hard work having so many babies, Joanne and Brett are determined not to take for granted just how lucky they are.
Joanne concludes, “We know they’ll keep us very entertained and it’s just a privilege that we’ve been given them.”
A live cook-off featured ox heart, wapiti, wild boar and plenty of edible wildlife.