The Bellingham quadruplets: 'They're mobile'

This is another installment in a Seattle Times series exploring what it's like to raise quadruplets.

Since learning she was going to have quadruplets, Korie Hulford's reality has not just been upended, it's been propelled into another solar system.

She quit her job at a property management company. She feared she would lose her Bellingham house.

And she essentially became a baby feeding-and-changing machine whose life was not measured in days and weeks but in diapers and bottles.

"You can't pee. You can't brush your teeth," said the 29-year-old mother of the four baby girls as well as two older boys. "But it ends eventually. They grow up!"

Hulford's only concerns the first few months were to keep germs out (a sign on the door asks visitors to remove their shoes and reminds them to wash their hands frequently) and to get each baby up to 13 pounds, a marker for good health.

Now the quadruplets — conceived without fertility drugs — are 9 months old. They are smiling, crawling, babbling and essentially becoming little people.

"They're mobile," said Hulford, 29. "They're so funny to watch. And they are constantly into things and learning things. That's the best part, to watch them learn things."

For the Hulfords, quadruplets weren't anticipated or expected. But the family has welcomed the four girls and learned how to stretch a single salary to feed and clothe them all without nannies or fancy baby equipment.

No typical day

Every day is distinct depending on which baby has a rash (which means the bathtub needs to be cleaned with vinegar post-bath), who has the sniffles or a cough (during a recent three-month period, someone in the Hulford household always had a cold) and what is going on with the boys (whether one of them has a field trip or a Boy Scout meeting).

On a recent morning, the father of the six children, Scott Hulford, 31, was out the door to his job as a sheet-metal worker before 7 a.m. The boys — ages 7 and 9 — watched cartoons until it was time to ride their scooters to school. Christopher, a first-grader, got up extra early anticipating a field trip to see cows being milked.

He asked if his aunt could come along as a chaperone, a plan that had been broached but never solidified. "You have to remind me of these things," Korie Hulford said gently.

It had been a bad night for Hulford — who can remember only one night since the quadruplets were born when she had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Andrea awoke at 2:30 a.m. Then, "somebody woke up at 3:30 and I have no clue who it was," she said. By 4:30 a.m. Constance and Anja (pronounced An-ya) were awake.

Hulford battles daily to get on an elusive routine — wake at 7 a.m., change and feed the babies, make lunches for the boys and get them off to school, hand wash yesterday's dishes, get the babies to take a nap, bathe and feed the babies, walk with the four babies in tow to pick Christopher up from school, change and feed the babies, wait for Michael — a third-grader — to get home from school, make dinner, change and feed the babies ... .

While the routine actually seems to be that there is no routine, being the mother of six has become easier for Hulford in the past few months. Although she still changes about 40 diapers a day and considers mowing the lawn a respite from life, she has the energy to cuddle and fuss.

"The first three months I was a lot more tired," she said. "I don't know. I guess I can live on four hours of sleep now."

And it helps that the babies are beginning to show signs of the people they have yet to become.

Becoming little people

The four identical girls, all with sparse strands of pale hair and grayish-hazel eyes, look as if they're straight out of a baby-food commercial.

Andrea, distinguishable by a small birthmark on her forehead, can be characterized as Daddy's little girl. She began sleeping through the night earlier than the rest so Scott Hulford began taking her to bed with him while Korie Hulford slept on the couch with the other girls in baby rockers next to her. Dubbed "the Energizer bunny," Andrea is always the last to nap or fall asleep.

Anja was the smallest at birth, weighing a mere 3 pounds, 8 ounces. Born with an intestinal problem, she was the only one of the four who required surgery. She is a couple of months behind her sisters developmentally. She hates it when her sisters touch her, and she was the last to be able to hold her own bottle. But that doesn't stop her from smiling coquettishly at strangers, winning over even the stoniest of hearts.

Constance, or Connie, is the inquisitive one. She always wants to know what that pen or shoelace tastes like. And she can often be found exploring some corner of the living room. Even-tempered and content, she isn't usually bothered by much of anything.

Emily was the biggest at birth, weighing 4 pounds, 6 ounces. Shy and timid, even the wrong look can send her into a fit of tears, said Korie Hulford. She always needs someone in her line of sight and she doesn't generally warm up to strangers.

Hulford promised her sons they would never have to change diapers. And for the most part, she's stuck to that. Michael offered once, although he's never volunteered again.

But as the eldest, Michael can often be found poking fallen bottles back into milky mouths. And he thinks about objects the babies might hurt themselves with.

"I left a paper clip right here and now it's gone," he told his mother worriedly.

"I already threw it away," she replied.

Christopher is not quite sure what to make of the four sisters who magically seemed to appear one day. He goes about his day ignoring their cries and blabber.

"It's as if he doesn't see them," his mother admitted. "He's in his own world."

Not part of the plan

Hulford thought her third pregnancy was going to be like the first two: She would have her baby and go back to work a month later.

But at 18 weeks into her pregnancy, she was told she was having triplets. At 19 weeks, doctors found yet another beating heart. Hulford was placed on bed rest a week later. And then she spent 2½ months in a hospital bed at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle before having a Cesarean section at 33 weeks, about five weeks earlier than a full-term pregnancy.

Doctors originally thought the girls were two sets of identical twins, meaning two of the mother's eggs were fertilized with the father's sperm and then each egg split in two. But now they think one egg split four times, the chances of which are 25,000,000-to-1.

But that is of no importance to Hulford.

"What can you do? Nothing," said Hulford in her typical grin-and-take-life-as-it-comes manner. "You roll over and make room."

Although a family of eight wasn't in the game plan, the cards began to fall when Hulford was 17 and met Scott. The couple moved in together two years later. Scott Hulford served in the Navy and Korie Hulford worked at a motel, first cleaning rooms and later working the front desk. With two sons, they eked out a living by working opposite shifts or having Korie Hulford's mother baby-sit during the day.

They talked about wanting a girl.

And suddenly there were four.

"I was one of those people who said that if I could afford it, I'd want five or six kids," said Korie Hulford. "But not all at once!"

Scott Hulford always wanted daughters, mainly so he could have his own cheering section.

"The boys were always taking (Korie's) side," he said. "So I'm hoping the girls will take my side now. Defend Dad."

Support from the community

Along with the shock of doubling the size of their family came the worry of how to feed and clothe so many.

Mother Baby Homecare, a program of the nonprofit Mother Baby Center in Bellingham, helped with a diaper drive. Complete strangers across the country knitted coats and donated clothes.

Various stores gave car seats and high chairs. And the federal Women, Infants and Children program supplied formula to supplement Korie Hulford's breast milk when she could no longer keep up with the quadruplets' needs.

The Hulfords also got a deal on a 15-passenger van so the family can go to a drive-through restaurant together, which they do about once a week.

"Money's tight. But along with that is there's no time to go shopping now to spend the money," Korie Hulford joked.

And there also hasn't been time to send out the 100 thank-you cards, with a photograph of the quadruplets, to anyone who ever gave them anything.

To make ends meet, Hulford improvises. Instead of buying baby food, she purees canned vegetables and fruits. She makes her sons' lunches every day. And instead of hiring babysitters or nannies, she hits up relatives to watch the girls so she can mop the floor, dust, vacuum, do laundry or simply take a nap.

Hulford's mother often runs errands as well — buying diaper-rash cream, bottle nipples, vinegar and fruit roll-ups for the boys' lunches.

And instead of working out at a gym, Hulford pushes the 40-pound stroller with the four 20-pound girls around the neighborhood each day.

"We're always a spectacle," she said.

And indeed they are.

Cars stop in front of the Hulford house so the passengers can glimpse the girls playing on the lawn.

At the grocery store across the street, shoppers coo, "How adorable," and "Can you tell them apart?"

Others have said, "Thank God that's not me."

Small victories

Throughout each day there are brief triumphs, like finding four pairs of matching socks or getting all the babies to take a nap at the same time.

And while Korie Hulford admits the boys' needs often come second to feeding, changing and bathing the quadruplets, she makes more of an effort to be with them now than before.

"It's actually been a lot better for them," she said. "As a typical family, you come home from work, make dinner and suddenly the day is gone. Now we make a point to make time for them."

Scott Hulford often takes the boys outside in the afternoons to play catch. Korie Hulford tries to read to Christopher every night. And they enrolled the boys in Boy Scouts where they can simply be boys instead of the brothers of four baby girls.

The boys were told that it'd be a year before the family could go on trips like they once did, said Scott Hulford. But he said they may go camping at some point this summer.

The family manages by worrying only about their immediate needs. While the thought of how they'll pay for six college educations flits through their thoughts, they have no time to daydream, said Korie Hulford.

In her usual light approach to life, she jokes about what she'll say when the time comes for the girls to get married.

"Here's 200 bucks. Go to Vegas," she'll say.

Gina Kim: 206-464-2761 or gkim@seattletimes.com