What She had in her BELLY was NEVER SEEN BEFORE in the History of the Hospital

The only thing we know for certain in life is that things don’t always work out the way we think they will. Sometimes we get surprises, whether good or bad. Courtney and her husband, Eric, certainly got a surprise when the doctor told them that what she had in her belly was something he had never seen before in the history of the hospital. Let’s see what happened.

Courtney and Eric Waldrop are a lovely young couple from Alabama. They had been together since middle school, and when they got married in 2004, it was clear to both of them that they wanted to have a large family. It didn’t take long for Courtney to get pregnant, and nine months later, in 2008, they welcomed their baby boy, Sailor, into the world. Their journey as parents had officially begun, but oh boy, they were clueless about where it would still take them.

After about a year, they started trying for a second, but some roadblocks were sent their way, and sadly, Courtney suffered a few miscarriages. It is estimated that one in eight pregnancies end up as a miscarriage, so it’s something quite a few families experience. Although it usually happens in the first trimester, it is often a big blow, especially when the baby is more than welcome.

“It was devastating because I can get pregnant so easily, I just can’t hold on to them,” Courtney said in an interview later.

She and her husband, of course, went for medical checkups, but were told it was hard to determine why she was losing the babies each time. To help them with family planning, they were given fertility treatments, and these worked. Courtney felt pregnant with twins this time, two boys whom they called Wales and Bridge.

So far so good, and Eric and Courtney were very happy with their family of five. They could have left it at that, but they felt that perhaps a fourth child would still be nice. Again, it was hard to get pregnant, and some fertility treatments were given to the couple. Courtney was put on a lower dosage this time, however, to minimize the chances of conceiving multiple fetuses again.

Well, this turned out not to work. When she finally fell pregnant, she went to the Huntsville Hospital in Alabama for a checkup. An ultrasound was taken, and Courtney and Eric waited patiently for the results. Soon, the doctor came out with a shocked expression on his face. She was definitely pregnant, but her belly contained something he had not seen in his own professional medical history or in the hospital.

There appeared to be no less than six fetuses in her belly. It was very uncommon for something like this to happen without the help of IVF, and the odds of this are estimated at one in about five million. It was basically a medical miracle and quite the curiosity. If you are a medical professional, no sextuplets in general have been born in Huntsville Hospital since 2011, let alone such special multiples, and it was going to be quite the event.

As you can imagine, the news was an enormous shock for Courtney and her husband. They had simply wanted to have a fourth child, not suddenly turn a family of five into a family of 11. All the ramifications of the incredible message ran through their heads, and it took a while to get used to the idea. How are they going to manage? They needed six of everything now, from car seats to baby beds, to sets of clothes, to baby bottles, and oh dear, how many diapers were they going to need?

Then there were the medical consequences to think about as well. Carrying so many fetuses at once poses risks for both the mother and the unborn children. It would likely result in delivery via C-section, or even worse, premature birth and a chance of losing some or all six of the babies, but also the chances for complications like strokes, high blood pressure, UTIs, gestational diabetes, and placenta issues developing rise significantly. They were scared and found it hard to be excited about the pregnancy.

The young couple was offered the option of selective reduction. This means some of the fetuses would be removed to give the remaining ones a better chance of survival. It was a bitter pill to swallow for Courtney and Eric, and something they never thought they would actually have to consider. How did they know what was the right choice? They dwelled on it for quite some time, trying to find out what was the best way forward.

Being people of strong faith, they ended up deciding to let faith guide them through the process. They were simply too afraid to make the wrong choice and handed it over to God, trusting things would work out as He intended. When they came back for a follow-up ultrasound a couple of weeks later, they were delighted to see the six babies still inside her belly, all with a complete set of fingers and toes and seemingly doing great. They were happy that they had let things be, but still, the risks were there, and during the whole term Courtney, Eric, and also her doctors were anxious things would take a turn for the worse.

Their aim was to keep the babies in her belly until 30 weeks, when they would have developed enough to be able to survive outside the womb. It was going to be an exciting time, and meanwhile Courtney, who is quite small-framed, was growing larger and larger. She had to eat a lot of food to provide both her and the babies with enough nutrition for proper development, something she was not used to at all.

“Please pray that my appetite will allow me to eat like I’ve never eaten before,” she wrote on Facebook.

The couple lived in an incredibly tight-knit community, and as soon as the news was out that the neighborhood would soon be welcoming historically unique sextuplets, everyone was stoked. Courtney’s friends organized a fun run to raise funds for the family, and at the start of the run, they would be revealing the gender of the babies with colored smoke bombs, dubbed God’s Divine Nine.

The Waldrop family was fast gaining celebrity status, and this was truly cemented when they were invited by TLC to start shooting their own reality TV show. Now the whole world could enjoy their joys, trials, and tribulations in the show called Sweet Home Sextuplets, which became a big hit.

In week 25 of her pregnancy, Courtney was told to stay in bed until the babies were born to make sure they developed steadily and would not be born too early. Her belly was already enormous, but she still managed to smile most of the time and carried them with love and pride.

“Because it was a very high-risk pregnancy, she was very limited in her movements,” Courtney said.

“The hardest part was not the physical discomfort, but the fact that she was now unable to give her three boys the attention she wanted to give them. It was really nothing else than just the challenge of trying to still be a good mom for them and grow these six babies and get them where they needed to be,” she stated.

Then, just under 30 weeks, Courtney’s body started contracting and her water broke. It was time. The C-section was immediately scheduled, and it took a team of 40 medical professionals to deliver the six babies into the world. There was a special team for each baby that would catch it and bring it to its own little bed, ready to give each baby the individual attention he needed.

Eric was standing next to Courtney, holding her hand and supporting her all the way through. It all went lightning fast. From the first baby to the last baby, it only took four minutes. To everyone’s relief, all six of them—three girls and three boys—came out healthy, complete, and right as rain. They would still have to spend a couple of weeks in the hospital to be monitored, allow them to develop and grow, and give them the best chance in life, although the important 30-week mark had been achieved, they were still born prematurely.

So how do you come up with six baby names at once? After Sailor, Wales, and Bridge, Courtney and Eric continued the outdoor theme and called the three girls Rawlings, Rayne, and Rivers, and the three boys Tag, Layke, and Blu.

Now life for the Waldrop family had changed overnight. They had nine children to take care of suddenly, quite overwhelming. It was a challenge for sure: six newborn babies that all need attention at the same time, and then still three other boys in the house. Luckily, Sailor, Wales, and Bridge were already going to school, so during the day it was just Courtney, Eric, and the six tiny ones, but still it seemed impossible, so they called in help and soon had a whole team of friends and family helping out on a 24-hour rotating schedule.

The Waldrops soon realized their house was not able to hold this much love. There was not even enough space for Courtney and Eric to have a room of their own, so they planned a major renovation and moved into a trailer in their backyard for the time of the construction. Little did they know that exactly at that time, a global pandemic would hit and they would be stuck in their tiny trailer with the whole family for a lot longer than anticipated. Can you imagine the struggles and the chaos, and you thought your lockdown was tough?

But they managed, and soon the construction workers came back and the renovation could be finished. The TV show continued running, and the Waldrops were becoming more and more famous. Have you seen them on TV? It was simply amazing to most people watching how the couple managed it all. Taking care of a family of nine is simply a monumental task. Just getting them all strapped into car seats was a mountain to climb each time, but not once did Courtney or Eric raise their voices or get visibly upset. They simply accepted that it was going to be hard, that they were going to be tired most of the time, and that those diapers were going to have to be changed.

The years to come would be exciting, exhausting, thrilling, challenging, but above all, blessed, and Courtney and Eric seem to be the right people to handle it. A friend of Courtney’s related, “They’re like nothing I’ve ever met. Courtney is literally the most positive person you’ll ever meet. She just has a heart of gold. She’s definitely the perfect mom to handle all of this craziness.”

Can you imagine having that many children? It’s not common nowadays to see such big families, especially not such special ones with historically unique sextuplets.