Steve and Sara Skopec with their children. Clockwise, starting with Seth in the center, then Kathryn, Ryan (on the left), Kyle, and Caleb, the oldest son.

One might think that the home of a family with five children under the age of 11 would be absolute pandemonium, but the Skopec home in Bolivar is anything but.

The house couldn’t be more tidy and 10-year-old Caleb and 8-year-old quadruplets Ryan, Kyle, Seth and Kathryn couldn’t be more polite and respectful.

They even raise their hands and wait to be called on by their parents to speak, as if at school. Parents Steve, an engineer at Tracker Marine, and Sara, an activities coordinator who is studying to become an occupational therapist, couldn’t be more calm and in control of their clan.

However, “calm” didn’t exactly describe Steve and Sara after their first doctor’s appointment for what they thought was going to be their second child in 1996.

“I was about nine weeks along,” Sara recalls. “My doctor in Bolivar, Dr. Vance, performed an ultrasound to see how things were looking. He scanned one side of my belly and we saw one set of twins. Then, he moved the ultrasound scanner over to the other side and we saw another set of twins. We were shocked. We had taken separate cars to the appointment … Steve had to drive me home.”

Adding to their shock was the fact that the couple hadn’t planned on having any more children. Caleb wasn’t yet 2 at the time.

“I guess I wasn’t destined to win the lottery,” Sara joked. “The odds were about the same.”

St. John’s maternal/fetal medicine specialist Gary Thurnau, M.D., who began treating Sara once the Skopecs found out they were having quadruplets, says the odds of a spontaneous quadruplet pregnancy are 1 in 500,000 to 1 in 600,000. The Skopecs were comforted by the fact that Dr. Thurnau had cared for two quad pregnancies and several triplet pregnancies in the past.

“He had high hopes that everything would be fine,” Steve says. “We knew that a lot could go wrong, but we also knew that the doctors at St. John’s were watching her very carefully.”

Within a week of that first appointment in Bolivar, the Skopecs were thrust in the spotlight and became the talk of their small town.

“Before long, the newspaper started calling and people started coming up to us in town,” Sara says. “We got a lot of attention and a lot of support.”

Sara was immediately placed on home bedrest. She was also told to avoid caffeine, chocolate, cheddar cheese and to consume 4,500 calories a day.

“We wanted her to gain between 80 and 100 pounds,” Dr. Thurnau says.

That wasn’t an easy task for Sara.

“I ate six meals a day instead of three. Once I went into the hospital, the nurses would bring me food from their homes. I also ate a lot of McDonald’s French fries,” she says. “It got harder and harder to eat all that food.”

At 20 weeks, Sara was admitted to St. John’s Hospital for the duration of her pregnancy.
Eleven weeks later, Dr. Thurnau and her other doctors determined it was time to deliver the babies by Cesarean section. Twins Ryan and Seth had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, in which one baby was essentially “stealing” nutrients from the other.

“Most quadruplet pregnancies deliver around 30 weeks, so Sara did better than average,” Dr. Thurnau says.

The Big Arrival

On June 5, 1997, about 40 people, including Sara’s and the babies’ doctors, nurses and staff from Healthy People magazine, gathered in the Cesarean section delivery room to watch the event.

Sara’s C-section was performed by St. John’s OB/GYN Julie Gibbons, M.D. It was her first quadruplet delivery. Dr. Thurnau assisted Dr. Gibbons.

“I felt very lucky to be a part of such a special event,” Dr. Gibbons says. “I remember counting how many staff had to be in the delivery room because we had to have four warmers in the room, and each warmer had to be staffed. The most memorable part of the delivery was the fact that I kept going in to get yet another baby. The Skopecs’ remains my most memorable delivery yet.”

The Homecoming

After six weeks in the NICU, the Skopec quads came home to Bolivar. The community welcomed them with open arms.

“We didn’t have to buy diapers until they were 18 months old. The clubs in town all held baby showers for us and every sorority at SBU has babysat them. We’ve been very lucky,” Sara says.

Steve, nodding his head in agreement, mentions how the babies went through 25 diapers a day and because they were born nine weeks premature, they all had to sleep with apnea monitors when they came home. After a month at home, the Skopecs hired a night nurse.

“St. John’s contacted several companies for us and arranged for donations of equipment, diapers and formula. They were on a special formula for colic and it was pretty expensive,” Steve says.

Big brother Caleb still calls his sister and brothers “the babies” even though Kathryn is taller than he is.

“He’s very much the big brother,” Sara says, about Caleb. “They (the quads) pretty much do whatever he tells them to do.”

Milestones for the family included the quads sleeping through the night at 6 months old, holding their own bottles and becoming toilet-trained.

“They were all potty-trained within the same week of each other,” Steve says. “That was a relief. Another milestone that most people don’t think about was tying their own shoes. It’s not a big deal to have to tie one set of laces a few times a day, but when you have four kids the same age, you’re pretty much tying shoelaces all day long until they learn how to do it themselves."

As for all of the attention, Sara says the family is used to it.

“I think it’s made us better at talking to people. We do answer the same questions over and over again, but we don’t mind. Most people have been conscious to include Caleb in the attention they give to the others, which we appreciate. The kids are pretty used to it all … in fact, on their first day of kindergarten, one of the boys asked where the TV crews were,” she adds, laughing.