“We are Heather Langley and Priscilla Rodriguez and this is our crazy quint life. Our story and life together have been far from boring and the most amazing ride so far, and we know it is only going to get more interesting and fun! Priscilla and I met over 9 years ago when we were both living in Colorado. Priscilla was working in the oilfield industry and I was working in EMS. We both grew up in different areas of Texas and moved to Colorado around the same time in 2010. We did not meet until January of 2013.
We met on the internet, spent some time talking over the phone via texting and phone calls, and finally decided to meet in person. Our first date should have been lunch, but it ended up lasting almost 18 hours. We did lunch, drove up to the mountains, had dinner, went to a jazz club, and sat in a parking lot talking till almost 3 in the morning. It was the most amazing first date, and we were both hooked from there. When we first really started to get to know each other, there were some talks of kids.
I always knew I wanted to be a mom. Priscilla, on the other hand, was on the fence about the idea. The idea and talk of children were put on the back burner because shortly after we got together, Priscilla had to move back to Texas for a job. My job and part of my family were in Colorado. For almost 2 years we did the long-distance thing. With my work schedule, it was much easier for me to fly back and forth from Colorado to Texas. I met Priscilla’s family and she met mine in those 2 years. The minute I met her family, I fell in love with them and felt so incredibly welcomed and part of the family.
After 2 years of the long-distance thing, we had enough and I finally made the move back to Texas, although a different part than where I grew up. Moving to West Texas was a big shock and extremely hard for me to adjust to, and it put a strain on our relationship. We did end up taking a small break, which lead to our first daughter, Sawyer. Finding out I was pregnant with Sawyer ended up being the biggest blessing that neither one of us expected and knew we wanted and needed.
Priscilla was at every single doctor’s appt for Sawyer, from hearing her heartbeat for the first time to thinking I was in labor and spending the night in the hospital only to be sent home and told it was not time yet. Sawyer was born in August of 2017. Seeing Priscilla hold our daughter was one of the most beautiful sites I had ever seen. The bond between Sawyer and Priscilla is something unbreakable. Sawyer is an absolute firecracker. She is funny, loud, has her own style, and LOVES to color and put stickers on everything.
After having Sawyer, I went through a hard battle with postpartum depression. I was lucky, and with having Sawyer and Priscilla by my side, I was able to beat it and come out stronger. Life as the 3 of us was amazing. I was blessed with being able to be a stay-at-home mom with Sawyer and Priscilla continued her career in the oil and gas industry.
In the summer of 2019, I started to get the urge to give Sawyer a sibling. The feeling got stronger, and one day Priscilla and I were sitting out in her work truck talking while Sawyer was enjoying a day with her tía and tío (aunt and uncle) who live in the same town as us. We were talking about the idea of adding one more to our family. Priscilla drove to a local gas station and bought a few scratch-off lottery tickets. One of the tickets she got was a $20 ticket. Jokingly, Priscilla held up the ticket and said if we made our money back with the $20 ticket, we could look into the process of having one more. I started scratching off the ticket and all I could do was laugh. We made our money back, and then some in the first few scratches! We found a local fertility doctor and started the process.
There were blood tests and multiple other tests to make sure my body was healthy and able to make and carry another child. We talked about our options and what was available, and we ended up settling on trying IUI first vs IVF. IUI was less invasive and was significantly less cost-wise. It took a while for us to find the right donor, and once we did, it moved FAST. After all the tests and finding the right donor, we went back to the fertility doctor in January of 2020.
We got a calendar of when we were going to start the pill to help with ovulation. We started the medicine and went back for our first follicle check to see where things were at. We were disappointed when things did not progress the way they should have, only to find out we were given the wrong dosage of medicine. To save the cycle we had started, the fertility doctor ended up giving us an injectable medication similar to what is used in IVF. We had to do a few bottles of the injectable medication to get a follicle the right size and we were finally given a date for our IUI, February 11th!
We went to the office on the afternoon of our IUI. The procedure itself was very quick. We remember after the fertility doctor did the IUI, he congratulated us and shook our hands. After he left the room, they made us stay flat on the exam table for 15 minutes. We were laughing and joking as to why he would be congratulating us now. There was no guarantee the IUI was a success. In fact, the success rate for the first time is incredibly low, so we could not figure out why he was so happy and congratulating us.
We also joked about how funny it would be to find out we were pregnant with twins. Little did we know the joke was on us. After the IUI was done, one of the hardest parts began—the 2-week waiting period to be able to test and find out if we were pregnant. During our 2-week waiting period, Priscilla’s grandmother got extremely sick and ended up passing away due to cancer. On the day of her funeral, we had the blood test that would let us know. I remember the next day sitting by the phone waiting for the fertility clinic to call. They finally called and we got the news, WE WERE PREGNANT! We were so excited and in disbelief that it worked!
I went back to the fertility doctor on March 4th for just a checkup. For this appointment, I was on my own due to Priscilla having to work. I remember laying on the table as the tech was doing the ultrasound and she started counting, ‘There is 1, 2…’ I was thinking how amazing it was for twins. And continued, ‘3 and 4!’ I was in complete and total shock! After the appointment, I took a picture of the sonogram and sent it to Priscilla and asked her to tell me what she saw, and she immediately called and asked if there were 4. She saw it as the start of our 4 tiny miracles.
We tried to relax and let the news set in over having 4 babies growing when we both went back for another appointment with the fertility doctor. The technician was doing her exam and she got quiet and left the room for a minute and came back in with the doctor. We were scared, thinking something had happened to the babies. They both looked over at us and said there was a 5th baby developing. The fertility doctor took us both into his office to talk about the babies. He let us know about all the risks we were looking at from miscarriage, high risk of preterm labor, the possibility of severe brain damage to the babies, cardiac issues, intestinal issues, and so much more.
The doctor highly encouraged Priscilla and me to terminate the entire pregnancy. We both immediately were against it and he then encouraged us to consider a reduction from 5 babies to 2. A reduction would involve us waiting until the 11th or 12th week of pregnancy to see what fetus would make it to the 2nd trimester. Then, we would go to another specialist who would see what babies were closest to the top of the abdomen and then inject potassium chloride into the gestational sac to stop the heartbeat. We went home and talked over everything and ultimately both decided we couldn’t live with ourselves if we did it—we were blessed with these 5 babies and we would see everything through no matter what.
The fertility doctor kept pressuring us to end the pregnancy, and we couldn’t. So, we ended up switching over to the most amazing OB/GYN. He respected our decision to keep going with the pregnancy as is. Right as we started the journey of this high-risk pregnancy, COVID hit. The world we knew was shut down, including doctors’ offices. I was able to continue seeing my OB and high-risk OB, but Priscilla was unable to go to any appointments with me. I was watching our sweet babies develop week after week, seeing them bounce and move, hearing their heartbeats and developing a bond, and Priscilla was robbed of the opportunity.
She got to see sonogram pictures, but she was unable to see them in person. Each week was a massive milestone, and one more week they were getting bigger and stronger. At 19 weeks, I went in for an anatomy scan to make sure everything was developing at the size it should be, and to do a regular check on the babies. We were warned we might not be able to see the gender due to the number of babies and the limited space inside. I remember the tech saying, ‘Baby A-girl, baby B-girl, baby C-girl, baby D-girl, and baby E-girl.’ I remember thinking after each time I heard ‘girl’ that we still had a chance of there being a boy, but there wasn’t.
We were blessed with not only being pregnant with quintuplets but all-girl quintuplets. Later we found out our girls were only the 2nd set of all-girl quintuplets in the US. I told Priscilla about the genders by giving her a card with their sonogram pictures and signed the card with the names we had already picked out for the babies. We had 5 girl names and 5 boy names picked out. Considering how high-risk our pregnancy was, the pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I did have placenta previa with baby A but had no problems with it.
Every week, I would go to either the regular OB or high-risk OB. We were warned pretty early on in the pregnancy that at 24 weeks I would be admitted to the hospital as a precaution. We lived about 45 minutes from the hospital, and if anything were to happen, the doctors wanted me there to be able to help the babies. Especially with the placenta previa and the gestation of the babies. At 24 weeks, I went into the hospital. It was SO hard! I was able to see our oldest daughter for a tiny visit at a time. She was unable to come into the hospital due to COVID.
For 4 weeks, life continued with me in the hospital and the babies continued to grow. I was given medicine to help their lungs and brains since we knew they would be born early. Day after day we continued to wait for when my body would say it was done. At 28 weeks, I started to go into labor. For 2 days the doctors worked to get it to stop, but they were unable to. On the morning of August 13th, our world was forever changed with the birth of our 5 tiny girls via C-section.
All 5 girls were born within 3 minutes. Hearing each one of their cries was absolutely WONDERFUL. All 5 girls weighed between 1lb 10oz and 2lb 1oz. All 5 were taken to the NICU immediately and evaluated by the doctors and nurses. Priscilla never left the babies when they were born. The NICU was an experience that forever changed us. We met some of the most amazing people that day, and they cared for our girls and ultimately became lifelong friends.
The time in the NICU was filled with small milestones; holding the girls for the first time, having their breathing tubes removed, sucking on pacifiers for the first time, change in the size of their diapers, gaining enough weight to be able to wear clothes, move to an open bed, being fed with a bottle and getting ready to come home. The quints spent between 88 days to 111 days in the NICU. One by one, the girls started to come home. Adjusting to life was easier than we anticipated.
Our days now consisted of feedings, diaper changes, big sister wanting to hold the girls, and washing bottles. Due to COVID, we didn’t take the babies out in public. The first year of life as a family of 8 FLEW by. Life is now filled with baby screams and laughs. Life is loud, exhausting, busy, and full of love. We would not want it any other way. We were blessed with 6 amazing girls who are taking on life and knocking down every obstacle life is trying to throw at them. 4 of the 5 girls are walking, which has dramatically changed life. We are chasing babies around like crazy.
The quints love watching cartoons, eating Cheerios, and playing with each other. Watching the babies grow and thrive has been nothing short of a miracle. The bond between the 5 of them is so strong. I love seeing their individual personalities develop and seeing Sawyer develop into the best big sister. Sawyer loves the babies so much! She doesn’t call them her sisters—they are her babies. Sawyer loves to help with feedings, changing them, and playing with them. Every day as our family of 8 has been amazing.
When we started having a family, we were scared. We were 2 women, and 2 women in a small, conservative Texas town. We were scared of being judged, our children being judged and facing discrimination. But we have been met with the exact opposite. We love this small town and know it is home for not only us but our unconventional family. We can’t wait to see what the future not only holds for us as a family but for our girls. Our family is different in that we are 2 moms, but we want something for our girls like any other parent—a happy and full life.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Heather Langley and Priscilla Rodriguez of Texas. You can follow their journey on Instagram and Facebook. Do you have a similar experience? We’d like to hear your important journey. Submit your own story here. Be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
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