Imagine trying to add one more child to your family, only to find out you’ll be adding five! When Kim Tucci and her husband Vaughn made the decision to become parents, they already had three children—a boy and two girls—and wanted to have another male. What they got was the boy they were hoping for, plus four baby girls.
Tucci made international headlines in January 2016 when non-identical quintuplets Keith, Ali, Penelope, Tiffany and Beatrix were born.
While Tucci was thrilled to discover she was pregnant after being diagnosed with endometriosis, she shared on Facebook that when she first learned she was pregnant with five babies all she could do was laugh. She wrote:
“The doctor started to count ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE!!! Did I hear that correctly?? FIVE?? My legs started to shake uncontrollably and all I can do is laugh.. I could see the excitement in [my husband’s] face he told me ‘We can do this”
But while excited, she was also “scared of the unknown” and doctors, who feared for the health of the babies and their mom, advised selective abortion.
She explains: “After my initial ultrasound I was told I could consider the selection method to give 2 babies the best chance in life… I sobbed as I watched a YouTube video about the process because I could never do it! Was it selfish of me to deny two the chance of a perfect recovery? All I knew was that I already loved them and grew closer to them with each heartbeat I heard.”
She added: “For me life starts when a heart starts beating and all I know for sure is that I will do whatever it takes to bring them into this world healthy.”
Tucci had already been through the frightening birth of her first son Kurt when she was just a few days shy of her 18th birthday. He was delivered through emergency C-section eight weeks early, and the prognosis for his survival was poor. Kurt showed he could fight, but his mother soon discovered he was deaf.
Tucci has chosen to keep Kurt out of the spotlight until recently, but while she was with him in the NICU, she saw the suffering of the parents and the deaths and hardships of other preemies. She wasn’t aware of it at the time, but it was getting her ready for the arrival of her quintuplets.
It’s that value for life that would carry over into her refusal to abort any of her babies. Now two years old, the quints are a joyous handful, of course, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. Having eight children may have obstacles, but it also has benefits. When you’ve had to fight for your children’s lives, Mother’s Day must be exceptionally meaningful.
On January 28, 2016, a team of 50 doctors and nurses performed a C-section to deliver the quintuplets. Keith, Penelope, Beatrix, Tiffany, and Allison were all born healthy, but they all spent time in the NICU before being released on April 7, 2016.
“50 fingers 50 toes, 6 hearts beating at once. My body fought the toughest of battles to get five babies here safely,” Tucci wrote. “Everything I did I did for them.”
“I have gone through so much for a 29 year old yet my life experience has been very limited, all I really know is how to be a good mum. I think there comes a time for many that doing anything outside of being a mum turns into this anxiety-filled experience, it’s so hard for me to look past being anything other than a mother these days, ask yourself now who are you if you aren’t a mum? I certainly don’t remember who I am, maybe because I hear the word MUM so many times a day I have been brainwashed to only see that person […],” she wrote on Facebook.
“Regardless I’m one lucky mum and I really felt the love this morning from all my gorgeous children and husband.”
