Rachelle Wilkinson Gives Birth To Record Breaking Quintuplets

August 01, 2007

Rachelle Wilkinson Gives Birth To Record Breaking Quintuplets

Congratulations to Rachelle and Jayson Wilkinson on the safe arrival of their quintuplets.

The Cedar Park mom gave birth to quintuplets Tuesday morning, breaking a national record in the process.

The three girls and two boys weighed a combined 21 pounds, 7.2 ounces, besting the previous heaviest quintuplets by 6 ounces, according to doctors at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix.
Rachelle Wilkinson and her babies were doing well after the Caesarean section birth there, family members said, and people across the country were already calling Tuesday to congratulate and offer donations.

It's Central Texas' second set of quintuplets; the first was born in 2002 to a Kyle family.

"It was kind of overwhelming," said the babies' father, Jayson Wilkinson. "They started bringing all of these babies, and they were all crying and wiggling. It was one of those sort of surreal things to think all of these kids are mine."

Though the average time for quintuplets to be in the womb is 28 weeks, Elliott said, Wilkinson wanted to carry the babies for 34 weeks to ensure they were healthy. That lengthy term itself was just a few days shy of another record.

Family and doctors say all of the infants are healthy — two are on respirators, and the largest has been moved to the regular hospital nursery. The smallest baby weighs 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and the largest weighs 5 pounds, 1.2 ounces.

The Wilkinsons said they expect to stay in Phoenix for two weeks before coming back to Cedar Park.

Jayson Wilkinson plans to take a little time off from his job with National Instruments, an Austin software company, to help care for the babies. Rachelle Wilkinson used to teach statistics at Austin Community College but plans to stay at home for now.

A fellow mother of multiples, Susan Friar of San Antonio, has some advice for the Wilkinsons: create a schedule, and remember that each child is an individual.

"Life with multiples is so much fun because of the bond that they have together — and the fact that it's rare. You're like a traveling circus everywhere you go," said Friar, a mother of triplets and a board member of the San Antonio Area Mothers of Multiples group.

Rachelle Wilkinson said she and her husband always wanted a family that was big enough to fit comfortably in a minivan.

"I guess we've outgrown that," she said.

Name	Sex	Weight	Time
Kassidy	F	5 lbs., 1.2 oz.	8:17 a.m.
Kaydence	F	3 lbs., 6 oz.	8:18 a.m.
Rustin	M	4 lbs., 15 oz.	8:18 a.m.
Kyndall	F	4 lbs., 2 oz.	8:19 a.m.
Ryder	M	3 lbs., 15 oz.	8:19 a.m.