Months after welcoming their five babies – daughters Adalyn, Everleigh, Malley and Magnolia, and son Jake – Mississippi couple Haylee and Shawn Ladner shared the first photos of their little ones.
In the photos shared on April 12, the quintuplets are in pastel outfits as they celebrated their first Easter together in ɴᴇᴏɴᴀᴛᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇɴsɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇ at the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower at Children’s of Mississippi hospital.
“It was really ʜᴀʀᴅ not to cry,” Haylee Ladner, a middle school teacher, says of taking the family photo. “It was just such a beautiful moment for us.”
Seeing them all together for the first time in the ᴄʀɪʙ, the new mom says, “Mᴇʟᴛᴇᴅ my heart,” with Shawn Ladner adding, “Seeing them all together, I was, we’ve really got five kids now!”
The rare quintuplets were born on Feb. 16, with Adalyn arriving first at 9:19 a.m. and Jake last at 9:23 a.m.
Baby Malley was the smallest one, weighing 1 pound, 11 ounces, while their brother Jake was the largest at 2 pounds, 5 ounces.Haylee Ladner says having the babies spend time together in the ᴄʀɪʙ for the photo was “so important.”
“They hadn’t been all together like that since they were ɪɴsɪᴅᴇ of me. So that was the first time they all five had been right next to each other in a very long time,” she says. “It was just so sᴜʀʀᴇᴀʟ, and it was literally such a special moment for us.”
The four girls are identical quadruplets, meaning one ꜰᴇʀᴛɪʟɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴇɢɢ was divided four ways. The ᴏᴅᴅs of having identical quadruplets are about one in 15 million. As for quintuplets, they occur in ʀᴏᴜɢʜʟʏ one in 60 million births.
The mom of five says that she tells her babies apart by their bracelets and nail polish.
“We’ve got some bracelets and I also bought some nail polish I will put on their toenails,” she says, adding that she “would like to believe that I can tell them apart. I’m pretty good at it.”