Mum of 7 ‘couldn’t believe’ she was pregnant with ultra-rare quadruplets, 3 of which are identical (EXCLUSIVE)

Need to know

• April Martinez and Shanpel Fields of Jerrell, Texas, became parents to four children, Artemis, Curtis, Denahi and Eudora, on July 13.

• This is one of the rare instances in which quadruplets were conceived naturally without fertility treatment.

• “I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it,” Martinez told PEOPLE when the doctor told her she was pregnant with quads.

A Texas couple achieved a feat described as 1 in a million: conceiving quadruplets naturally without fertility treatment.

In July, April Martinez and her husband Shanpel Fields, both 25, welcomed sons Artemis, Curtis and Denahi and daughter Eudora to multiple births. Austin American-President.

The children join three siblings in Martinez-Fields’ family of nine.

“It hasn’t sunk in at all,” Martinez, of Jarrell, Texas, tells PEOPLE about the birth of her quads. “I don’t think it’s ever going to go away, because I still don’t believe it.”

“To me, I don’t think we’ve done anything crazy,” she adds. “This is our life.”

Martinez says she and Fields found out she was pregnant on Jan. 20. She had just started serving as a corrections officer, so she waited for her insurance to kick in before making an appointment to see her OB/GYN.

However, she later experienced pain at work and went to the ER alone where she had an ultrasound.

“One of the nurses who came in was joking, ‘What do you do if you have more than one?’ ” Martinez recalls. “I was like, oh, that would be crazy. She’s like, ‘What if you have more than two?’ I was like, ‘You have to accept me. I think I might lose it.’ “

“She just laughed and walked out of the room,” Martinez continued. “Then she went back to the doctor, and the doctor was like, ‘In my 20 years, I’ve never had to tell anyone this. You’re doing quads.’ I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it.”

Martinez called her husband from the hospital and told them they were expecting more than one child.

“He was like, ‘We’re twins? I was like, ‘No. More than that.’ He was like, ‘Triplets? No, stop playing.’ I was like, ‘No, I don’t play. It’s more than that.’ He was like, ‘Four?’ He couldn’t believe it.”

Dr. Jasbir Singh, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center in Austin, Texas, oversaw Martinez’s care after the ultrasound, describing the natural conception of quadruplets as out of the ordinary.

He said the chance of a natural quadruped is between 1 in 700,000 and 1 in 1 million.

“With infertility treatment, we’re seeing twins and triplets more often these days,” he tells PEOPLE. “But she had a spontaneous quadruple pregnancy, which is extraordinarily unique and rare and that made it very special. And also that there were three identical babies, which is remarkable.”

He says that in Martinez’s case, she had four babies but only two placentas. “The placenta is basically the lung-heart machine, or the root of the tree, that provides nutrients to the tree,” he says. “So the three kids were sharing the same root system.”

Singh recommended that Martinez begin bedrest around the 26th week of her pregnancy, when the baby was expected to be born at 30 weeks. “The quadrilaterals are very complicated,” he says. “Multiple pregnancies are very complicated because they have an extraordinarily high preterm delivery rate. The average pregnancy for twins is 36 weeks. And for triplets, it’s about 32 weeks. You can imagine that it’s earlier for quadruplets, but there are many complications that can occur throughout pregnancy.”

Martinez was working at her job until she experienced contractions and was admitted to St. David’s North Austin Medical Center on June 14. During her stay she was visited by her three children and her husband Shanpel, who brought a PlayStation to the hospital to entertain her.

“It took us a while to figure out how to connect it to the hospital,” Martinez recalls. “Once we figured it out, me and my dad used to play Call of Duty every night It was great to get a sort of general feeling while you were there. So crocheting [baby blankets] and Call of Duty My biggest time consumers were.

On July 13, an issue involving the delivery of nutrients through the cord of one of the quads, Artemis, prompted the delivery. “He doesn’t get it the way others should,” says Martinez. “We were all in Artemis’ timeline.”

“[Artemis] got really small and really sick,” Singh says, “and we wanted to maximize the pregnancy for everyone’s benefit, because you can’t just go in and have one baby and leave the others. We really had to push the envelope for that little kid so other kids could take advantage and maximize their potential. So we gnashed our teeth for a long time, but finally the child declared itself so sick that we had to deliver it.”

The delivery took place in an operating room where several medical personnel were required. “They usually say when you go into it it’s one team for yourself, people doing your C-section, and then one team for the baby,” Martinez recalls. “So they had to have four separate teams, one for each kid. It was pretty packed out there.”

Then the quads popped out: Artemis 2 lbs., 1 oz.; In Denhai 3 lbs., 1 oz.; Curtis at 3 lbs., 2 oz., and Eudora at 2 lbs. and 13 oz. Because they were born prematurely, each of them was sent to the NICU where they were later seen by their mother as they recovered in the postpartum room.

After Martinez was discharged from the hospital three days after the delivery, she and Fields visited the quads, depending on the couple’s work schedule and who would be available to care for their older children.

In late August, Curtis, Denahi and Eudora were able to go home while Artemis’ hospital stay took longer due to her feeding problems. He was finally discharged on November 9. Now with all the quads at home, Martinez says she can now breathe again. “I thought I was just waiting and waiting. We feel complete now. We can resume our new normal life.”

When they found out they would be having quads early in the pregnancy, Martinez and Fields bought a van to accommodate their big baby. The family recently moved into a new home after previously living in an apartment.

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“We’re doing our best to figure it out and see what works best for us,” Martinez says of the pair’s new adjustment. “My husband is also back at work now, so when he’s at work, I’m at home with the kids and mine [elder] Girls go to school. And when he comes home in the afternoon, it’s kind of like, well, now I get a little break, you know? So we’ll trade off for a little bit so that it works. We figure it out. “

After delivering the quads, Martinez had her tubes tied because it was her last pregnancy. The family plans to spend the holidays at Martinez’s sister’s house. “She has the biggest living room, so we’re going to fill it,” Martinez says. “It’s going to be awesome. Artemis missed Halloween, but it’s nothing crazy. She’s coming here for Christmas. I can’t wait.”

Looking back on the experience of giving birth to quadruplets, Martinez says, “When you’re doing it, you don’t have time to think about it because you’re so busy. But I think from an outsider’s perspective, it’s pretty crazy.”

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