I gave birth to five babies at once but then I forgot to take my pill – soon I’ll have six-under-two at age 27
A MUM who gave birth to five babies last year has revealed she’ll be expecting her sixth at the age of 27.
Haylee Ladner revealed she forgot to take her birth control amid the chaos of looking after five babies, resulting in her getting pregnant with her sixth child just one year after giving birth to quintuplets.
The mum from Mississippi, US, admitted she forgot to take birth control for one day, leading to her happy yet unexpected pregnancy.
She also revealed she suffers from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) with symptoms including irregular menstrual cycles, so wasn’t fazed when she missed her period the month prior.
“We weren’t trying, and I was on birth control,” she told Today.
But Haylee decided to take a pregnancy test as a precaution and learned she was expecting her sixth child just a year after giving birth to five.
Haylee and husband Shawn welcomed their quintuplets, Adalyn, Everleigh, Malley, Magnolia and Jake, in February 2023.
Three of the tots were hospitalised in December with pneumonia, which Haylee thinks may have been when she forgot her birth control as she was understandably preoccupied.
Although Haylee did have pregnancy symptoms, she didn’t think twice about them.
She explained: “For one thing, I was really, really tired, but I assumed it was just because I have five kids!
“Of course I’m tired. So I just kind of chalked it up to that.”
The couple went for their first ultrasound after taking a few more tests where it was confirmed she would give birth to a baby girl in July this year.
Although thrilled by the news, the couple say this will definitely be the last child they have.
The mum said: “We thought we were completely done, but we were blessed with this sweet surprise.
“This will be our last baby… We plan to take extra precautions.”
“It was scary at first, because they’re going to be so close together in age, but if I can handle five, I can handle six,” she added.
The pair’s current brood of four girls and one boy are currently thriving, “Watching them interact together is just the best,” Haylee said.
“They’re constantly laughing and smiling at each other. And we just sit there wondering what it is that they’re talking about.”
Haylee and Shawn got married back in 2019 and always knew they had wanted a large family, wanting at least for children.
But her PCOS made it difficult for her to carry her pregnancies, and she unfortunately had two miscarriages.
The mum was terrified she may not be able to conceive and so turned to intrauterine insemination (IUI), to help them get pregnant.
The procedure is a type of artificial insemination which involves sperm being placed in the uterus around the time an ovary releases one or more eggs.
The odds of conceiving quintuplets naturally are one in 60 million, but with reproductive technology that chance goes up to six in 10,000, according to reports.
What is intrauterine insemination
Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a fertility treatment that involves directly inserting semen into a woman’s womb.
Often the process uses your partner’s semen – which is filtered so that only the healthiest specimens are injected into the womb for the best chances to get pregnant.
IUI is available on the NHS and at private fertility clinics.