PHOENIX (AP) — Bringing five babies into the world has left Jamie Scott feeling tired, excited and ultimately blessed.
She delivered quintuplets by Caesarean section after 29 weeks of pregnancy on March 21 at Dignity Health St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix.
"I feel so blessed when I look at each of their little faces, and each of their little souls I can feel," she said.
She and her husband Skyler Scott temporarily moved from Utah to Phoenix in December to get care at St. Joseph's. The hospital, in partnership with the Elliott Center for Multiples, is a go-to facility for pregnancies with high-order multiples, or triplets or more.
The new Scott children include three girls —Violet, Daisy, Lily — and two boys, Logan and Lincoln. All were born weighing less than three pounds.
The babies are doing well; no one needs a breathing tube or is on antibiotics, said Dr. Vinit Manuel, who is the medical director of what St. Joseph's calls its Nursery Intensive Care Unit. He said they'll likely spend the next five to six weeks in the hospital.
The Scotts amassed more than 53,000 Facebook followers and more than 35,000 Instagram followers during the pregnancy. Speaking to the media on Friday, the Scotts praised their health care team. Jamie Scott required eight weeks of bed rest.
"They really made it so bearable and wonderful," Skyler Scott said. "And I really believe that some of the best, most angelic people in the world somehow find their way into the NICU."
The Scotts have a 12-year-old son, Shayden and a 7-year-old son Landon. They learned they were welcoming quintuplets after struggling to get pregnant for a third baby and seeing a fertility specialist. When they learned they were expecting five babies, they "researched like crazy" to find the best care, Jamie Scott said.
The high-risk pregnancy saw complications; at 21 weeks, the sac surrounding one of the babies ruptured. But it eventually began to heal itself, something Dr. John Elliott said he hadn't seen before in a quintuplet pregnancy.
Throughout the pregnancy, Jamie Scott gained 73 pounds — just shy of a 75-pound goal — while consuming around 4,000 calories a day. Elliott wanted to deliver the babies at 34 weeks, but a 29-week delivery was still longer than the national average of less than 27 weeks for quintuplets, Elliott said.
Much of the journey was shared on their Facebook and Instagram pages, dubbed "Five Two Love" as a nod to the "scquints" and their two sons. At first, Jamie Scott was hesitant to share details of her pregnancy publicly.
"The messages of love and hope that we've received from around the world have really helped strengthen us to get through this tough time of very, very high risk pregnancy," she said.
The Scotts plan to return to their community in St. George, Utah, once the babies and mom are healthy enough to travel. A GoFundMe account set up for the family has raised more than $25,000 in two months.
For now, the Scotts are focused on keeping the babies fed, with mom pumping breastmilk every three hours, and looking forward to getting their family of nine under one roof.
"I'm excited," she said. "I'm very, very tired right now, but I know with doing this it's gonna take the two of us and a whole village of people back home."