When Stephanie Freels started having fertility treatments, she was told that she was very fertile and that they had to be careful because she could get pregnant with quintuplets. She never thought that would happen, though. Until, of course, it did! Then, she and her husband Graham Freels started making plans to make sure their babies got the best care possible.

Graham first looked for a hospital that could handle a pregnancy that was so rare. They found St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix by doing this search. The couple was living in Washington at the time, but since the hospital in Arizona is one of the few that has experience delivering this many babies at once, they didn’t hesitate to move their lives there briefly.

Adelyn, Eliana, Fisher, Harper, and Linnea all came into the world on June 4, but it seems like they did it in a sneaky way.

“I didn’t think I was in labor,” Stephanie said. “We went to the doctor because I was so uncomfortable because I was carrying so many babies. When she told us that the babies would be born tonight, it was a big surprise.”

Even though it was almost midnight on a Saturday night, the hospital was able to get about 20 doctors and nurses together in about an hour to make sure Stephanie’s delivery went well. Stephanie was able to have all five babies with their help in less than an hour and a half.

Even though there were no problems during birth, these babies had to stay in the hospital for 11 weeks because they were born too soon. During that time, Stephanie and Graham made sure to ask the hospital staff as many questions as they could.

“I still don’t feel like I understand,” Stephanie said.

It sounds like a lot to go from having no children to having five all at once, but this couple seems up for the task. As soon as the hospital let them take their babies home, they went back to Washington, where their new lives can really start.