All Carla and Paul Crozier wanted was a little brother or sister for their three-year-old daughter to dote on.
It had taken them five years of failed pregnancy tests and IVF on the NHS to bring precious Darcie into their lives. And they wiped out their savings trying to make their family complete, with more self-funded fertility treatment following agonising miscarriages.
But after one last IVF gamble, Darcie now has three more siblings than her parents had bargained for.
And the toddler will have her work cut out telling one from the other – as her mum gave birth to two sets of identical twin girls, beating odds of 70 million to one.
The quadruplets arrived 12 weeks early on March 27 – the day after Mother’s Day. Now dad Paul, 42, is working around the clock to buy a minibus so he and Carla can take Isla, Demi, Alyse and Milla home from hospital.
“We’ve been looking at seven-seater cars, but none have a boot big enough for the prams,” says Carla, 34. “It’s still only just hitting home that we’ve got four babies. Last weekend we had our first cuddle with all four girls at once. That was when it really sank in.
“Paul went first and I looked at them all on his lap next to each other and thought, ‘Oh my God – we have four babies to care for’.”
Builder Paul adds: “I still can’t imagine the day when we take them home. That is when the chaos is really going to begin.”
The overjoyed couple today share with us some of the snaps they have taken to capture their babies’ first four weeks.
They include Carla and Paul enjoying their first cuddles with the girls and big sister Darcie reaching into Milla’s incubator to hold her little sibling’s hand.
Another photo shows twins Alyse and Milla cuddling up to mum and holding each other’s tiny hands. The couple’s desperate quest for a family has cost them a total of £16,000 – including an £8,000 loan for a final IVF attempt.
And now life is going to get even more expensive. But all that matters to Carla is her huge new family are soon going home. “I still can’t believe they have all arrived safely,” she says. “We are so happy.”
It’s a far cry from the drama last month as she woke up on Mother’s Day to find her waters had broken. Carla, of Grays, Essex, was admitted to hospital for bed rest in the hope the births could be delayed.
But she suffered a rare and dangerous cord prolapse, where a baby’s umbilical cord came out of her uterus, and was rushed into emergency surgery. “Everyone rushed in and I was wheeled off to the delivery room and knocked out,” she says. “Within 10 minutes the first baby was born.
“When I woke up, a nurse told me all were doing fine and soon Paul arrived. He’d been asleep at home.” Isla Amelie was first at 4.10am at 2lb 4oz, followed at one-minute intervals by Demi May, at 2lb 7oz, Alyse Jade at 2lb 4oz and Milla Leigh, at 2lb 9oz.
“The first time we saw them was really scary,” says Carla. “They were each in their own incubator and needed help breathing. They had wires everywhere and looked so fragile. I wanted to cuddle them, but we weren’t allowed.”
Four weeks on, doctors say the girls are doing well. All four have been transferred from Medway Maritime Hospital in Kent to the family’s local Basildon University Hospital – and they are likely to be going home in June.
Carla says: “I spend all day with them and then come home to get Darcie’s tea and put her to bed. I’m not able to breastfeed them yet, but I’ve been expressing milk to be fed by tube. I don’t know how we are going to cope. I’ve no idea how I will feed all four. Newborn babies get through about 10 nappies a day, so that will be 40 changes for us. It is really daunting.”
One of Carla’s biggest worries is she will muddle up her identical twins and not know which is which. “Milla has a couple of skin tags on her ear, so we can tell her apart from Alyse, but Isla and Demi are completely identical,” she says.
“I think I will have to paint their toenails different colours. They already have their differences. Isla is mischievous, Alyse is chilled out, Milla is always active and Demi can be a bit grumpy.”
She adds: “You can already see each set of twins has a special bond. When I was able to have my first twin cuddle it was with Demi and Isla. I put them next to each other on my lap and they put their heads to each other and tried to suck each others’ faces. I couldn’t help but cry.”
She says Darcie keeps asking when they will be home. “Every morning she asks me: ‘Are my sisters big yet, Mummy? Are they coming home yet?’
But Paul and Carla still have lots to do before that day. “We need to buy the cots, the car seats, two tandem prams, and not to mention the minibus,” she said. After we first told their story in January while Carla was still pregnant, well-wishers have rushed to help. “Everybody has been so generous and I don’t think we will have to buy any clothes for the girls,” Carla said. “We are so grateful.”
