Quadruplets born in Modesto turn 1. They’ve brought their parents joy — and challenges
The four Villanueva brothers began their lives a year ago in an intensive-care unit in Modesto.
The quadruplets spent about two months at Doctors Medical Center before leaving for their home east of Hughson.
Parents Tania and Rene Villanueva are celebrating the boys’ Dec. 31 birthday with gratitude that they are doing relatively well.
But they also recall the stress of seeing their newborns hooked up for weeks to breathing and feeding tubes. They were about three months premature and weighed 2 to 2.6 pounds at birth.
Andrew was born at 2:36 p.m. on that New Year’s Eve, followed over six minutes by Julian, Samuel and finally Robert.
The medical emergency has passed. But the parents still deal with a fourfold increase in a single baby’s need for feeding, diapering, comforting and the like.
“It’s crazy to have four babies at once,” Rene said during a mid-December visit from The Modesto Bee.
Quads don’t come along often
Quadruplets happened in only 114 of the 3.75 million pregnancies in the United States in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Triplets were involved in 3,136 pregnancies, twins in 120,291.
The Villanueva children are not identical quadruplets, an even greater rarity. But they do look alike with their full heads of brown hair and the fact that they’re all male.
The boys already had their afternoon naps when they met the media that Thursday. They don’t crawl yet, due to the delays typical of preemies. But they did bop around the living room in four walkers with wheels, propelled by their little legs.
Rene, 38, drives a truck for Grizzly Nut, an almond processor near Waterford. Tania, 32, was its plant manager before she became pregnant with the couple’s first children. They have been married for close to six years.
Tania and Rene have had help all year from extended family and fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This allowed the couple to sleep during the early months at home, when the babies woke about every three hours.
The family lives in a Swanson Road house with just two bedrooms. The couple plan to move in a few months to a four-bedroom place more suited to a quartet of growing boys.
Doctor visits revealed issues
The babies have had several doctor visits for vaccinations and general checkups. Robert, Julian and Samuel were found to have heart murmurs, which indicate irregular beating. They were corrected via a procedure using a catheter inserted in the thigh.
Julian and Samuel still have incomplete closure of the soft spot every newborn has on the skull. It will heal with the aid of helmets that the boys wear 23 hours a day. The Bee visited during their one-hour break.
Parents of premature babies can expect developmental delays that roughly correspond with that lost time in the womb, according to WebMD. That explains why the Villanueva boys have yet to crawl at 11 months.
They practice this and other skills during “tummy time” on the floor, Rene said. A physical therapist visits to help with the boys’ progress. So do teachers from an Early Head Start program in Ceres.
The brothers weighed between 17.3 and 20.7 pounds during an early December doctor visit. The average 11-month-old boy weighs about 21 pounds, WebMD says.
The Villanueva kids still drink the formula prescribed in the Neonatal ICU and will do so until they are 15 months old. They started eating the typical baby cereal and jarred fruits and vegetables at about 8 months old.
Their bedroom has two cribs and two bassinets. They at first had a pair of double strollers, but their parents later found one that can carry four babies.
The family car is a 2005 GMC Yukon Denali, with three rows of seats. The Villanuevas don’t travel much, given the hassle of getting four babies ready. But when they do go out, it’s with a pair of diaper bags that also hold bottles, toys and other items.
Andrew is the only brother who has yet to speak a word. The other three have said both “Mama” and “Dada.”
Four tiny heartbeats
Tania found out she was having quadruplets during a doctor’s visit about two months into her pregnancy. An ultrasound detected four tiny hearts beating inside her.
“(The doctor) told me that I was going to have four babies,” Tania said. “I was in shock. I was scared.”
She and Rene learned what they could about multiple births. Meanwhile, the NICU staff at Doctors started planning for the Caesarean section births, hospital spokeswoman Krista Deans told The Bee a year ago. This included several meetings about possible scenarios.
The births went well on the scheduled date, under the care of Dr. Robert Altman and the rest of the team. They were spaced by two minutes to ensure each child was safely out of the womb.
“This was such a special delivery, especially being on New Year’s Eve, and a beautiful way to end the year,” Deans said.
Rene continued working at Grizzly Nut during the babies’ time in the ICU. Tania spent much of each day visiting them, and Rene did the same after work.
The babies could not go home until they could breathe on their own and no longer needed feeding tubes. They also had to reach the minimum weight for riding in a car seat.
Samuel was the first to leave the hospital, on Feb. 20. Julian followed on March 1 and Robert and Andrew on March 4.
Rene took off from work during his sons’ first three months at home, when they were still waking often at night. He and Tania changed as many as 32 diapers a day.
“Every three hours, you’re feeding and changing them,” Rene said. “By the time you’re done with four of them, it’s almost time to do it again. And you’re trying to take naps.”
During these months, family and friends visited on a schedule to help with these tasks and provide meals to the parents. They continue to do so informally. They also set up a GoFundMe page to help with expenses. It’s still active under the name Villanueva Quad Squad.
‘We get stopped a lot’
The couple don’t often take all four boys on shopping or other trips, but when they do, they draw attention.
“We get stopped a lot,” Rene said. “It takes hours when we go grocery shopping. ... We walk in and already everybody’s turning and ‘Oh wow, four babies.’‘’
The same thing happened during a recent photo shoot with Santa at Vintage Faire Mall.
Each boy also gets some one-on-one time with a parent or other close family member, Rene said. It’s nothing formal, just some more tummy time, and a brother or three sometimes join in.
Each of the boys has his own personality, the parents said. Samuel is the most assertive, known to snatch a toy from a brother. Andrew is the most aware of his surroundings. Julian is calm, the least likely to cry. Robert loves to be hugged.
The quads mostly babbled as Tania and Rene answered The Bee’s questions, sometimes reaching for a parent’s lap or a visitor’s camera.
“They’re very calm babies,” Tania said. “They only get fussy when they’re hungry or tired.”
The boys are celebrating their first birthday with a small gathering close to home. Rene said it includes the “cake smash” that many babies enjoy on this day.
The couple have not decided when they might have more children. For now, they continue to hone their skills at raising a foursome.
Rene said he and Tania have joked about opening a day care center. “Our slogan’s going to be ‘If we can take care of four, we can take care of your babies.’ ”
This story was originally published December 31, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
