Having children is possibly one of the best things life can throw our way, as any parent might tell you. It’s an emotional mess when it comes, both financially, and mentally, but at the end of it, when it comes to having children, they are an essential part of any family and truly complete us emotionally.
When it comes to the story of Bethani and Tim Webb, they couldn’t wait to bring back home their own child. However, a shock came their way with some unexpected news.
Now, this unexpected news can be seen in two ways, you are either a half is glass empty kind of person, or a glass is half full kind of person, but whatever the case may be, this is a four full glass cups full type of story, something truly special and exciting, however shocking it may be, and it should be seen as something truly amazing.
Children are a gift from God, or a genetic way for us to reproduce and share our life with others, in whatever way you decide to see our biology and cycles, chances are that you can agree that a family is truly complete when children come along the scene.
Without these bundles of joy, life just wouldn’t make as much sense, and they are always full of surprises, or in the case of this family the pregnancy itself.
After having a wonderful wedding and marrying each other, Bethani and Timm Web of Hythe in Alberta, located in Canada, we’re extremely happy to learn that they are pregnant and are finally going to have a baby to complete their family.
Originally, their intention was to wait at least a year before having a child, but life had other plans, and as such, they felt completely elated by the news and could not be happier from the outcome.
When it comes to children, life has a way of delivering them unexpectedly, this is why you rarely want to plan things like this, as planned pregnancies are rare due to the millions of reasons someone can get pregnant unexpectedly.
In any case, if you are married, you will inevitably get to a point where you want children, and that is one of the ways our lives on this planet are special.
Many people decide to have a baby after they get married, and in some cases, they get married because they are expecting, whatever the case may be, a family is not truly complete without bundles of joy running around the home, while you as a parent take a look back at your life and realize that, you are never alone, you have a husband or wife and wonderful children to accompany you throughout your life from now on.
And so, life carried on, and some months passed.
Going to a routine visit at the doctor’s office, the couple was asked a question they did not quite expect. The doctor looked at them and asked “Do any of your families have histories of giving multiple births?”.
Having this information come it as quite a shock, Tim and Bethani shook their heads in both disbelief and a confirmation that that is not a common case throughout their family tree.
You see, instances like these are really rare, as in, they almost never happen, and in the rare cases when they do happen, it is usually connected to the family tree in some genetic way shape or form, and as such, the doctor has to ask if this has occurred in the past, as that would make a lot more sense, but in the case of this family, they simply go really lucky in the process.
At this point in time, they received news that came as quite the shock and reveal, something they were not expecting at all. The doctor simply turned the screen to the couple and started counting the babies seen on the screen, starting from one, going on to two, and then three.
Bethani, scared, told the doctor to stop at baby three, however, they counted all the way to four babies in total, which was quite the surprise for the couple.
Now, imagine yourself in that room, at that moment, deep inside your heart you know that something is not quite right, and you expect to hear some bad news, suddenly, you realize that the news, while not bad, is indeed quite surprising, and when you realize you are about to get four children, you are in complete shock, time stops, and you start to analyze every outcome of this procedure.
You start to think about medical things, such as will the birth be successful, will all of the children come out healthy, will you find a way to financially sustain yourself, and your children in the process, and will you be mentally prepared to take care of four children which will run around the room, cry, learn new things and grow alongside you, and you start to doubt your ability to handle such a task.
Bethani, being in complete shock, entered a panic mode, as quadruplets were the last thing she expected from this pregnancy. They were going to be quite a challenge to take care of, and the birth of this kind is extremely rare in most cases.
According to statistics, in 2015, only 228 sets of quadruplets were born in the entirety of the United States, which should give you more of an idea of how rare this type of birth really is.
Quadruplets are an amazing thing when you think about it, and are extremely rare, especially when all of them come out healthy.
As such, this family should feel extremely lucky for being greeted with such a surprise, however, raising four children, when you were expecting one or two, can be a chore, both mentally and financially, and rarely are families ever prepared to embark on such a change in their lives.
When it comes to these kinds of births, most families who expect quadruplets have the aid of fertility treatment, however, there is only one in 729.000 of a chance of having quadruplets naturally, so you might be forgiven for assuming this couple was playing a trick on their family, joking around, when they shared the news that they were not having one baby, not two, not three, but four in total, which must have been a huge shock.
Now, imagine you are a parent, and your child marries and is about to have their own children, so far, throughout your family tree, no single family member has ever had more than one or two children.
Your son or daughter tells you that they are expecting a single child or twins at the most, so you let that piece of information inside, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you are shocked with a new piece of information.
Suddenly, they tell you that they are expecting four children, which comes as a shock to you as well, your child and their significant other are about to embark on an adventure and a challenge, that not even you, yourself, had to pull through in life, which is both extremely impressive and lucky, but scary as well, and you start contemplating your reality in disbelief for the moment.
However, their families eventually came to the realization that they were, in fact, extremely serious and the couple quickly started to crunch the logistics of taking care of four children.
Bethani said that they did not even have a vehicle to support the four babies and that they would also need to move with Tim's mother, as their one-bedroom apartment was not big enough for housing six people in total, as the expectancy was less.
When it comes to financial issues, they were piling up to be huge. Imagine the costs of raising one child, and multiply it by four children.
This means that you would need four strollers, four fee car seats for each baby, four cribs, a lot of diapers, food, clothes, shoes, space for the children to run around in and be free, fees for raising them as a whole were off the roof and extremely pricey.
More specifically, you need to look at the long-term financial issues. Over time, all of the children will have to go to school, get books, get backpacks, clothing, eventually, you will have to buy each and every one of them a car, help them rent an apartment, and follow them along with their lives as they find their soulmate and start a family of their own in the process.
This can prove as quite the chore.
However, there is a bright side to all of this, the more children you end up having, the bigger your family will eventually become, as they will all hopefully get married, and have children of their own, and as such, the family line is greatly increased, and there will be more people around the house to help out if something, god forbid, bad happens within the family as a whole, which is a great thing to have.
When it comes to the pregnancy itself, it was all going well, healthy, until at 33 weeks, when Bethani was transferred to a larger hospital known as the Royal Alexandria Hospital in a nearby Edmonton for a C-section.
During this time, the couple were greeted by their four daughters, yes, all females, which they named McKayla, Grace, Emily, and Abigal, and could finally see their cute little faces for the very first time.
The chance came as quite the shock at first, but they knew what was happening, or more specifically, what was about to happen. The doctor kept them calm, and the process went smoothly.
This proved to be quite a lesson, and we should be extremely happy to live in an era where medicine has evolved, and our hospitals have the capacity to deliver quadruplets without too many issues in the process itself.
Before carrying on with the story, if you recall, earlier we mentioned that there is a one in 729.000 chance of having quadruplets through natural means, but what is even more fascinating in the case of the Webbs were the fact that all four of their babies were female, which has a one in 15 million chance of happening, they literally hit the birth jackpot in a way when you really think about it.
When it comes to any pregnancy that occurs, even for a single baby, there can be complications, and that is especially the case when you consider quadruplets, however, Webb’s quadruplets were as healthy as they could possibly be, which came in as excellent news to the couple.
“I feel great that the babies are here and extremely blessed to have as many of them as I do, it is truly a blessing”, said Tim.
Tim has a darker story, however, as his father passed away a year before the quadruplets were born, so it was a huge deal for him to become a dad, he wanted it more than anything, and luckily for him, he now has four chances to make his father proud and truly carry on the family tree by being the best dad he could possibly be to all four of his daughters.
Keep in mind that Tim is now the only man in the house, and nothing can quite prepare a man for that challenge in life, as he is completely outnumbered by his family, however, he was as happy as he could ever be.
The family is beautiful, and his role as the man in the house, a dad, while exhausting, made him feel extremely proud, achieved, and happy, as he finally found a greater purpose in life.
The babies themselves were quite the challenge to take care of, as they would all need to be individually taken care of, however, Bethani and Tim were completely in love with them and they made sure to see the beauty in all of it.
Bethani joked around at the fact that at least they did not have to pick a favorite name, but could use all of the names they were thinking about naming a daughter.
While they had the privilege of using all of the names they were debating about using, the couple came across one unique issue, one they might not have initially expected to have, they had issues telling the babies apart, and they needed to figure out a way to make the girls look visually distinctive and different enough for them to have a clearer understanding about which daughter is which, so they do not mess it up.
As such, Tim and Bethany took to brainstorming and figured out quite the plan. They discovered that through a color-coding system they could distinguish each daughter.
As such, they selected pink for McKayla, blue for Abigail, purple for Emily, and yellow for Grace. However, over the following months, these colors might change and shift based on the preference of each daughter, but for the time being, the colors did their job effectively.
The girls had different nail paint depending on each preference, and they would eventually when they come at that certain age, wear different colored earrings as well so people have a better chance of distinguishing between them, however, the family as a whole could not resist occasionally having them wearing matching outfits, which were both a joy to look at and extremely cute.
I mean, how could anyone resist doing such a thing?
Over time, as the babies grew up, after a year or so, they eventually started to have their own personalities and own distinctive needs, which could ease up the entire guess who’s who process, however, it raised another important issue that needed to be resolved, and that is the fact that each baby’s needs needed to be fulfilled based on their specific preferences.
And this time, Tim and Bethani had quite the challenge on their hands.
Having a birth this rare came with is challenges, however, it also came with a few advantages. The quadruplets, with their adorable faces, took onto the internet with great success and popularity.
You have probably seen how cute baby images are online, but most commonly you might find one baby or twins at the most, as these are quite common, however, having four identically cute babies on a single image, that was something truly unique to see.
Having success like this is great, especially when it comes to finances, as the modern internet era relies heavily on views and traffic as a whole to generate advertisements revenue, which can prove helpful for the family in order to help them raise all four of their children to adulthood, or at least until they turn 18, which can be a challenge when raising two kids, so imagine what life is like when you have four.
Luckily for the Webb family, their unique situation gained the attention of their local community and as such, their neighbors located within their hometown of Hythe set up a GoFundMe account and camping for them to help offset the enormous costs that are involved with taking care of four children.
Other families also tried to hold fundraises for the family to help them in their overall situation, which was something great to see in any community.
While raising four children, especially when they were unexpected, might seem like a challenge, the Webbs were a dedicated couple prepared to take up any challenge when it came to their family.
Bethani said that she does not know what she would do without her children now and that her beautiful family truly completed her on a whole new emotional level that she never expected she could feel during her lifetime.
Overall, these children have a happy life ahead of them, with a family fully prepared and immersed in the goal of raising them to be rightful citizens, and preparing them for the world which is ahead of them, from the kindergarten to the school, high school, and hopefully college part of their lives, they will be accompanied by a truly lovely couple.
We should take a look at this story as a tale of pure unexpected and surprising luck.
While at first you might be overwhelmed as a parent, having to, all of a sudden, go from taking care of zero children, all the way up to four children, and especially when they are twins, it can be a challenge, true love and care can pull through any challenge life can throw your way.
So while they have to get used to them, learn all of their four daughter’s specific quirks, and personality traits, in order to truly distinguish them without relying on the different colored clothing to help them out in the process, we can rest assured knowing that they are fully aware, prepared, and have what it takes to make things right and help their children evolve and progress throughout life.
The Webbs family is now bigger than ever, and all of the parents, as well as grandparents, would not choose any other lifestyle besides this one, as the four children have had a lot to do with bringing the family together, as two parents can rarely find the time to fully commit to four children, so the grandparents gain a big involvement in the process as well, which is something truly special.
This story is truly one of a kind, however, there have been cases like this in the past, and all of those families pulled through as well, so if you plan on getting married, and having children in the process, and are initially afraid that something like this might happen to you, stay strong and keep in mind that even if it does, it will make you a stronger family because of it.