A thousand miles from home, a quadruplet's first journey ends in Montana

A uterine rupture at age 16 caused Yates to lose half her uterus. Four miscarriages later, Yates and her family had given up hope for a natural birth.

“I’ve been pregnant before, but I never made it very far,” Yates said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to, to be honest. I just kind of counted my losses at this point, we were planning on adopting.”

But there was an even more welcome surprise with the pregnancy.

“I knew I was pregnant with twins, at least,” she said. “And then they found a third one, and then Miss Elizabeth was just hiding right up underneath all of them.”

She was having four babies.

Yates was elated, having long thought a child of her own — let alone four at once — was not a possibility.

She and fiancé Julian Bueker welcomed Elliott, Max, Zya and Elizabeth — identical twin boys and fraternal twin girls — into the world on Oct. 17, at 28 weeks and four days. The delivery was premature, but went fine.

Elliot, Max and Zya weighed two pounds at birth; Elizabeth, the smallest and eldest of the four weighed one pound.

The chances of a quadruple birth are one in 700,000. The chances of two identical, and two fraternal, is 1 in several million. Yates calls them her little miracles.

“God only gives you what you can handle, and he gave me all four,” Yates said.

“It’s a lot, but I’m so ready for this challenge. I was ready as soon as I found out I was pregnant with four,” she said. “It could have gone a completely different way.”

Living in Springfield, Illinois, a greater reality hit, the couple were outnumbered two to one by the babies. They needed help.

Their thoughts turned quickly to Katelyn’s mother Deborah Yates who lives in Ballantine, a small town about 20 miles from Billings, a city with an abundance of excellent pediatricians. More welcome news. Grandma Yates invited them all to move in, and she’d be glad to help.

Their newborns were living in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. John’s Children’s Hospital in Springfield until their release date after Christmas, a date Grandma Yates was determined not to miss. She was bringing them home.

“If there’s a will, there’s a way,” Deborah Yates said. “God will provide, and he has.”

Deborah said she wasn’t tech savvy until the babies came and her daughter needed help. She called, she emailed and started fundraising.

“I was doing anything and everything to get them home; that was my goal,” she said. “I said ‘I don’t care what I have to do, how long it takes, I will get you all home. You will be safe.’"

The word was out, and help was on the way. Yates’ family were en route by mid-December. With an 18-hour drive ahead of them, their spirits were high. They wouldn’t be home for Christmas, but they would be together.

 “We wanted to have them home for Christmas, but we were with them. That’s all that matters,” Deborah said. “They didn’t have to be alone for Christmas.”

Ten days later they were on the road again, with Montana on their mind. After 76 days in the NICU, the premature quadruplets were on their way home.

“And slept all the way,” Katelyn said.

Elliot, Max, Zya and Elizabeth turned three months old on Jan. 17, now weighing six pounds each, and Elizabeth weighs five.

Attention isn’t lacking, with a set of hands for each baby. Their shared living space in Ballantine may be small, but it’s filled to the brim with love and diapers and wipes and baby food and baby swings. Now grandma’s little cramped house is more blissfully cramped than ever, and she couldn’t be happier.

“It’s the best gift we could get,” she said.  

Monetary donations for “The Quads” are accepted at any Stockman’s Bank location. Donate directly via Venmo, @katelynyates40.