When Stephanie Freels woke up on June 4, she felt achier than usual. But Freels, who was pregnant with quintuplets, never imagined she was in labor. The pain wasn’t that bad.
“Then my mucus plug fell out, and I was like, ‘Yup, this is happening,’” Stephanie, 27, tells TODAY.com.
Stephanie, a former gymnastics coach, chuckles as she remembers how her husband, Graham, went into “freakout mode," and began running around throwing clothes into an overnight bag. At the time, Stephanie was 27 weeks along in her pregnancy. Their goal was to make it to 34 weeks, but the babies had other plans. And after waiting to be parents for more than five years, the Freels were ready.
Once the couple arrived at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Stephanie learned her cervix was 6 centimeters dilated and that she was in active labor.
“My doctor was like, ‘So, you’re gonna have these babies tonight,’” Stephanie recalls.
The delivery room was crowded with surgeons, neonatologists, nurses and respiratory therapists. Also present was Dr. John Elliott, a perinatologist, who specializes in high-order multiple pregnancies. Graham and Stephanie temporarily relocated from Washington to Arizona to be under Elliott’s care.
“I knew we were in the best hands,” Graham, 29, says. But he couldn’t help but worry about the health of the quintuplets, whose technical due date was Sept. 1.
“I was petrified about the whole situation,” Graham reveals. He adds that his anxiety spiked when the babies, who were delivered via cesarean section, “didn’t make much noise," when they came out.
Graham held it together until after the surgery, when Stephanie was being stitched up.
“I started losing my hearing. I went deaf basically,” he says. “I looked over at Stephanie and I saw some things… and then I began to feel tingly and hot and I looked at the nurse and I said, ‘I’m going down.’”
“I wasn’t needing my oxygen mask at that point, so they gave him my oxygen mask,” Stephanie says, noting that she found the whole scene pretty hilarious.
Moments later, Stephanie and Graham were both crying happy tears as they met their daughters — Adelyn, Eliana, Linnea, and Harper — and son Fisher.
“We got to see every single baby before they were taken to the NICU,” Stephanie says. “It was just incredible."
Then Dr. Elliott popped by with good news: Though the newborns all weighed 2 pounds and under, none of them needed a ventilator.
"He was like, they are doing fantastic," Graham says. For the first time all day, Graham exhaled.
One month later, an emotional Stephanie held all five babies in her arms for the first time.
"I couldn't believe they were once all inside of me," she says.
The path to parenthood
After struggling for more than five years to become pregnant, Stephanie and Graham conceived with the help of intrauterine insemination (IUI) in 2022. An IUI is when healthy sperm is placed in the uterus as close to the time of ovulation as possible.
There is always a possibility of multiples (IUI), because the procedure often involves the use of fertility medication.
“When you grow up and your dream is to become a mom and it’s not happening — it’s definitely heartbreaking,” Stephanie says.
On the fourth try, the IUI worked.
“We had people praying for us nonstop, and I think that’s the biggest reason the quints are here,” Stephanie says.
It wasn’t an easy pregnancy. Stephanie suffered from all-day morning sickness, and had aversions to all food except fruit.
“I was supposed to be eating 4500 calories a day, so Graham started making me these smoothies. They were 1000 calories each,” Stephanie says.
Aside from the nausea and swollen feet, Stephanie describes her pregnancy as “perfect.”
“The scariest part was going into labor early,” she says.
That's behind them now.
After 76 days, the final quintuplet was discharged from St. Joseph’s NICU, and on Aug. 27, the Freels flew home to Washington. The infants barely made a peep on the plane.
“They slept the entire time,” Graham says. ”It couldn’t have gone better.”
The Freels, who are going through 50 diapers a day, can’t stop looking at their babies. But they suspect the siblings might be sick of each other.
“When we put them on the floor, they start hitting each other,” Stephanie says, to which Graham jokes, “too much togetherness in the womb!”