DIARY OF A BIRTH: 'Exactly what it was like when I gave birth to four babies at once.'

Preparing to give birth is stressful enough when you're expecting one bub. Now, imagine adding an extra three into the mix.

That was the reality facing Taylah Tudehope Glachan and husband Sean.

Taylah spoke to Mamamia's newest podcast, Diary of a Birth about the shocking moment she discovered her IVF baby was actually quadruplets, Archie, Billy, Charlie and Daisy (read all about that here). This is what came next.

Listen to part two of Taylah's story here. Post continues below.

Taylah's unique IVF quadruplets birth story.

Giving birth is never "ordinary". Every mum has a special story to tell. But Taylah's unique experience might just be in a world of its own.

At 30 weeks, Taylah was struggling with headaches, high blood pressure and occasionally blurry vision.

The hospital was prepping for a multiple birth that they hadn't had to attempt since 1995. More than 40 staff needed to be in the room and they'd gone through an intensive practice run.

At 32 weeks, it was go time.

"This buzz just starts filling the hospital like it was all building," she tells Diary of a Birth.

"It was wild and I can hear the buzz building, and then I hear it all go quiet, and they're having their debrief in there. And then I hear, like, a round of applause, like they're all clapping, and they're like, 'Let's do this'."

"My specialist midwife goes, 'Alright, we're ready for you. Come on in' and it felt like I was walking down the aisle of my wedding again.

"I come in and everybody is lining the wall, everybody's got their back against the wall. Everyone's eyes were just on me. And I was like, 'Oh my god, this is happening.'"

Taylah before giving birth. Image: Instagram/@theglachanquadsquad. 

The room was buzzing. And then the head doctor went silent.

"Everybody just went mute. It was incredible," Taylah said.

Each baby had its own team ready to whisk it away in a humidicrib. Everything was planned down to the second.

A placenta the size of three dinner plates.

Amongst the chaos, Taylah tried to stay as calm as possible.

"Privacy is gone. You're just open and there's 40 people looking at parts of me that I haven't seen in months. So I'm just going, alright, let's just roll with this," she said.

It was over in a flash. Her babies were all born within three minutes.

"I was a bit worried, because I'm not really feeling much emotion. Is there something wrong with me," Taylah said.

"Then they just show one baby and I just burst into tears, and we're like, 'Oh my god, there's actually a baby. There's babies in there. This is real.'

"We're just bawling our eyes out and the overwhelming sense of love, there's a bit of it there, but we were just still in so much shock… we do actually have four babies."

Watch the trailer for Diary of a Birth. Post continues below.

Suddenly, the babies and Sean were whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Four placentas came next, and it wasn't quite what you'd usually expect.

"They got the placentas out, but the placentas had actually merged together. So, imagine cracking four eggs in a fry pan, and they kind of come together. I would say it was probably about three decent dinner plates," Taylah said.

"They had to wheel it around because it's so heavy… And it was ginormous, this thing was massive."

She's not lying.

"The babies were born at around 1300 to 1500 grams each, and within 24 hours, I'd lost over 15 kilos. So you've got that with baby, but then a lot of that was placenta… and their umbilical cords were thick. We were all amazed at that."

After getting some feeling back in her legs, Taylah was able to go see her babies in the NICU and she was overcome with love.

"It's really confronting having NICU babies. They're tiny," she said.

"It was really hard, because you just want to stay there with your one baby and just take them in. But then I'm like, 'Oh, I've got to leave you now, because I have to go see your brothers'. I was just trying to spread myself between all of them. And it was just, it was, I was really torn."

Taylah and Sean's four newborns in hospital. Image: Instagram/@theglachanquadsquad 

All the chaos was worth it. Her little darlings were amazing.

"We couldn't have asked for more," she said.

Nothing could have prepared Taylah for bringing four babies home. But she credits a lot of her strength to her incredible support system.

"It was just knowing that even though I was down at hospital on my own a lot, I wasn't alone. Knowing that we had cheerleaders upon cheerleaders from people that we've known our whole lives, but also people we've never met, probably will never meet, that was enough," she said.

"We're still overwhelmed by that today, just the support of everybody."

Since birth, the family has hit the ground running and it hasn't slowed down since then.

Find updates from Taylah and her quadruplets at @theglachanquadsquad on Instagram.

For more information on multiple births, visit Australian Multiple Births Association.

For more stories from Diary of a Birth click here.

Listen to part one of Taylah's story here.

Feature image: Instagram/@theglachanquadsquad.