kelli medders journey to be a

story by | patricia carlson

Kelli Medders was meant to be a mom. She is warm, loving and devoted to her children. Her eyes dance with joy when she shares stories about them. But Kelli’s journey through motherhood has been unlike what most moms ever encounter in their own lives. Although it’s been filled with incredible highs, Kelli has also experienced immense tragedy no parent should have to endure. Yet through it all, Kelli’s desire to be the best mom she can be never wavered and her strength is an example to everyone who has ever dreamed of becoming a parent.

Kelli was a fresh-faced college freshman when she started dating Jason Medders at Mississippi State University. Both originally from Birmingham, Alabama, the pair immediately felt a connection based on their similar Southern roots and a strong shared faith. Although Kelli was working toward her degree, she confided in Jason that she dreamed of becoming a wife and mother after graduating.

“When we got married in 2000, I knew that Kelli wanted to be a stay at home mom, and I was glad,” says Jason. Three years later, a job opportunity at NDSU pulled the pair to Fargo and two years after that, Kelli’s dream came true; she became pregnant with a little boy they named Wyatt. “It was fun thinking and talking about what kind of child our firstborn would be,” says Jason. Having one child was certainly a blessing, but Kelli and Jason longed to expand their family and in July of 2007 Kelli found out she was pregnant again. “Five was my number,” Kelli recalls thinking about the number of children she wished to have. “Jason wasn’t so sure.”

Together, Kelli and Jason were about to embark on a life experience neither could have ever imaged. They would use a blog to update family and friends as well as gain support and much needed prayers over the months that followed.

July 4, 2007 “Today was a rough day. We just found out yesterday that we are expecting four babies. But that is all we know.”

Kelli and Jason scheduled what they thought would be a routine OB/GYN visit when she was around 8 weeks. It wasn’t. “I was just kind of expecting a normal ultrasound but I could tell that something just didn’t look right, there were a lot of little bumps and things that weren’t supposed to be there,” Kelli says. “And the first thing he asked us was, ‘Have you been taking any fertility drugs?’ and even though the answer was “no,” I knew right then that we were looking at multiples of some shape, form, or fashion.”

Instead of one baby showing on the ultrasound, Kelli’s doctor pointed out four babies. “I remember being very much in a haze, in a fog,” Kelli says. “I couldn’t think clearly, I couldn’t process, it seemed like a dream—any minute I was going to wake up and this was going to be over.”

Kelli’s doctor didn’t even know how it had happened; the chances of Kelli conceiving quadruplets naturally was about one in 15 million. He immediately referred the couple to a team of perinatologists at a hospital in Minneapolis where they specialize in multiple, high-risk pregnancies.

The next week, Kelli and Jason underwent a live, 3D ultrasound. The equipment used was so advanced that they could trace all four umbilical cords [no thicker than a human hair] from each baby [no larger than a kidney bean]. “The ultrasound tech there was absolutely amazed,” Kelli says with a grin. “He was an older man and he said he’d never seen this before and he would never see it again.” They determined that all four babies shared one placenta, but each baby had its own amniotic sac. And they were identical girls.

Kelli and Jason were both simultaneously thrilled and terrified. “We were told right away that it would be a difficult, high-risk pregnancy, and we knew the road ahead would not be easy,” Jason says. Deep in their faith, the couple reached out to family and friends in their faith community for prayers. And they leaned heavily on Kelli’s parents, who, just days before Kelli’s ultrasound, had packed up their belongings in Alabama and decided to move to Fargo with no clear intentions other than they felt God's calling to be closer to their daughter.