DALLAS _ After two months in the hospital, four identical quadruplets born at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas are now riding out the rest of the coronavirus pandemic in their home.
Hudson, Harrison, Henry and Hardy Marr were born at 28 weeks on March 15, the day before Dallas County's stay-at-home orders were issued. A team of 24 doctors and nurses helped with the delivery. Typical pregnancies last 40 weeks, but it's generally shorter for multiples.
The boys spent six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit and nearly two weeks in special care before being discharged one by one. Henry, the last baby to be discharged, went home May 12. They weighed between 1 to 3 pounds at birth and are now all 5 to 6 pounds.
"It is so fantastic to have them home," said the boys' mother, Jenny Marr of Dallas. "It feels good to have a pattern and feel a little bit more normal."
At their first appointment late last year, Marr and her husband, Chris, thought they would be having triplets. They were surprised a week later when they learned the egg had actually split four ways and they were instead having four babies.
There are only about 72 documented cases of identical quadruplets ever born, according to the hospital, and it's more unusual to have four identical boys. The couple has no history of multiples on either side of their family.
Leading up to the birth, Jenny Marr said she kept a positive attitude despite the challenges that may come with having four babies in the middle of a pandemic. After the boys were born, she said that she felt the hospital was the safest place for them to be monitored.
"Our nurses were social distancing from their families," she said. "They weren't seeing anybody because they put our babies first."
The hospital began its no-visitor policy March 23. Both parents spent up to 10 hours a day in the hospital as the boys gained enough weight to make the journey home. Like all hospital visitors, the couple was required to be screened and wear masks.
"I just didn't feel like it was an unsafe place to be and I don't feel like people should feel like that," Jenny said. "You go to the hospital to be taken care of, not to go get sick."
The boys' first and middle names are Hudson Perry, Henry William, Harrison Foy and Hardy Smith. The fact that the names all start with the letter 'H' happened by accident, Jenny Marr said, but each name was one that the couple likes or has a specific meaning behind it.
"Perry" is Jenny's grandmother's name, and Jenny Marr said she promised her grandmother that she would name her daughter after her, thinking that Perry could only be a girl's name.
"When we found out we were having four boys, I realized I was never going to have another child," Jenny Marr said. "And so we gave him 'Perry' as a middle name for my grandmother."
At home, Jenny Marr said she's getting help from nannies and family so that each boy gets the right amount of care. With their help, she said she's getting between five and six hours a sleep a night.
Raising four newborns during a pandemic will be different, Jenny Marr said, and she's waiting on a vaccine so that the boys can experience some kind of normalcy during their first years.
"I'm looking forward to just everybody coming and seeing how awesome they are, who they are and being able to hold and snuggle them," she said.
So far, Jenny Marr said, they've proven to be good sleepers, and they tend to enjoy each other's company. She admits that she does mix up the boys every once in a while, but she's figuring out each of their personalities and characteristics as they're growing.
"Henry has like a little tiny hemangioma _ it's like a little blood vessel _ he has one on his belly," she said. "I unzipped his little jammies and saw it was him. So I tickled his belly and he just looked at me and started smiling and laughing, and that was the first time that he'd done that."
