TYRONE TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Baby swings and bouncers leave just enough room to open the front door to Jessica and Robert Hicks’ two-bedroom, 1,100-square foot home.
Their living room is lined with infant carriers. Boxes of formula are stacked high in their tiny kitchen.
On Sept. 5, Jessica Hicks, 28, gave birth to the first quintuplets – three boys and two girls – delivered at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. She delivered after carrying them 32.5 weeks, staying the final four weeks in the hospital to allow the babies to mature in utero as much as possible; 40 weeks is full term.
Now after Emmett’s homecoming Friday, Jessica Hicks and her husband, Robert, 31, are adjusting to having all five babies in their house. Emmett had been recovering from Sept. 30 heart surgery.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” Jessica Hicks said Saturday as she cradled Emmett, who is too small to sit in one of four carriers taking up the living room floor. When they were born, they weighed between 3 pounds, 7 ounces and 4 pounds, 6 ounces each. “Trying to organize things is next to impossible.”
The parents have found only enough room in their ranch-style home for three cribs. That means four of the babies – Carol, Nicole, Parker and Ryker – sleep next to a sibling with baby Emmett getting slumber time to himself.
“We’re to the point now that we’re realizing this house wasn’t made for this,” Jessica Hicks said. “We thought we’d be able to live here awhile until they were mobile, but even now, their four bouncers are taking over the living room.”
Jessica Hicks sleeps in the same room on a futon. Their 3½-year-old son, Colton, sleeps in the adjacent bedroom, which doubles as a baby-supply storage area.
In preparation for the babies’ arrival, Robert Hicks renovated their basement to include an extra bedroom, where he now sleeps, in addition to a separate living area. The couple also acquired an extra washer and dryer.
She said the babies go through 30 to 40 diapers a day, and the couple has to empty the Diaper Genie disposal system each night. They also go through formula and a package of bottle liners daily.
Robert Hicks said he tries to help out as much as he can, but it’s tough while working full time – and sometimes more – as a mechanic 40 or 45 miles away in Ypsilanti, Mich.
The couple tried conceiving for a year before turning to fertility treatments. Robert Hicks said they had eight or nine treatments before Colton was conceived. With the quintuplets, Jessica Hicks needed only one.
Fewer than 10 quintuplet births occur across the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, the centers counted 41 births of babies who were part of a set of five or more.
Five weeks into the pregnancy, the couple learned that Jessica Hicks would give birth to two children. At six weeks, the couple thought they would be parents to triplets. Eventually, doctors saw quadruplets, leading their care provider to refer them to the University of Michigan.
“I love my family and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but we’re not even 30 and have six kids and a van,” Jessica Hicks said.
