Parents of Quadruplets Celebrate After Last Baby Is Discharged from NICU: ‘Life Is Beautiful Chaos’
"We still have a long road ahead of us and lots of things can pop up, but so far they're exceeding everyone's expectations," Jonathan Sandhu tells PEOPLE
Courtesy of Texas Children's Hospital
Jonathan (left) and Mercedes SandhuJonathan and Mercedes Sandhu are cherishing every moment of life with six kids ages 4 and under!
The Houston couple, who announced the birth of their identical quadruplet girls — Hannah Grace, Lucy Marie, Rebecca Claire and Petra Anne — on May 1, celebrated another milestone last week when Rebecca joined the crew at home (including big brothers Luke, 4 and Aaron, 20 months), following her discharge from the NICU after 86 days.
“They've been doing amazing,” Jonathan, 37, tells PEOPLE. “We had a weight check today with the pediatrician for the first three that came home, and our heaviest is just shy of 8 lbs., and the lightest is at 7 lbs., five ounces. So they're normal babies, essentially, which is shocking considering they're quadruplets all in one placenta. And there haven't been any other medical issues, knock on wood. We still have a long road ahead of us and lots of things can pop up, but so far they're exceeding everyone's expectations.”
Born at 29 weeks and three days at Texas Children’s Hospital, the quadruplets were called “statistical marvels” by Mercedes’ doctor, maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. Manisha Gandhi — especially given the fact that the couple did not use any reproductive technology to conceive, Gandhi told PEOPLE in May.
The four girls shared one placenta, which is known as a monochorionic pregnancy, making the pregnancy and their birth even more rare.
Over the past two-plus months, the Sandhu home has grown incrementally as each girl has joined what Jonathan calls the “chaos” of their loving home.
“It's been beautiful chaos with six kids, four of them newborns, two of them toddlers,” Jonathan says. “Someone is usually upset about something at any given time, whether it's just being hungry, needing a diaper change or with the toddlers, that there's too much milk in their cereal or something like that. And it's just getting to that stage of acceptance and just rolling with the punches and just embracing the chaos that's ever-present.”
On Friday, July 12, Hannah and Petra came home, while Lucy joined the festivities days later on Tuesday, July 16.
After undergoing “a few” bradycardia (or low heart rate) events, Rebecca joined her sisters and brothers on Thursday, July 25.
Courtesy of Texas Children's Hospital
Mercedes (left) and Jonathan SandhuEngineers by trade, Jonathan and Mercedes, 34, are now strategizing the logistics of their hectic day-to-day schedules, but they say they wouldn’t have it any other way.
When the couple first found out they were expecting quadruplets, Mercedes previously told PEOPLE that her primary emotion was one of shock.
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"Oh man, I was crying and laughing at the same time because I thought there's no way that this is happening," she said at the time. "I felt all these different emotions, but it was shock, that's for sure."
Now, as reality sets in, the parents have embraced their new life and are savoring how their sons have stepped up in their newfound big brother roles, Jonathan says.
“They have loved it,” Jonathan shares. “They have been so excited. Actually, our youngest boy through a fit, going to daycare this morning just because he wanted to be around the babies, he just kept going, ‘Baby, baby.’ He went over and patted all of them and shushed them this morning, he was so distraught that he had to leave them. You always worry about other kids when a newborn comes home and we had four of them. It's really changing their world, but they have loved it so much, and that's been the most heartwarming thing of just seeing them be excited to have little babies around.”
And Jonathan says being a dad of six has granted him a grateful perspective on it all, something he shares in his frequent updates on Instagram about the family.
Courtesy of Texas Children's Hospital
Big brother Luke (right) with one of the quadruplets.Related: Couple Welcomes Quadruplets 4 Years After the Birth of Their Twins: ‘It’s Been a Joy’ (Exclusive)
“It's amazing what you can handle when you're faced with it,” he remarks. “If you would've asked me a year ago if I'd be able to do this, I would've said absolutely not. And then last night, my wife and I were doing the nine o'clock feeding together and we're just each feeding two babies and we're talking to each other, and it was just a really nice special time and we're like, ‘Oh, this is so nice and relaxing.’ "
He adds, “It's all this craziness, but you just adjust and you find a way, and we're like, ‘Oh, it's not that bad.’ Everything's relative. What we tell ourselves, too, is our challenges of not getting enough sleep or worrying about all of our kids, there's people all over the world that worry about not having food for their families, and it's like, okay, putting it in context, these are not bad problems to have. These are solvable problems."
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