The Fantastic Four arrive

Mark R. Madler

Shelley Showalter and Steve Simpson stood beside an incubator in the

neonatal intensive-care unit of Providence St. Joseph Medical Center,

their hands through the holes in the side so that they could touch

their son Jordan.

Nearby, three other incubators held Jordan’s sisters: Ella, Emma

and Hayley.

“He has a strong grip,” Simpson said of his 2-day-old son.

“He loves contact,” Showalter quickly added.

The Sierra Madre couple will have much to celebrate this Mother’s

Day with the birth Tuesday of their four children at Providence St.

Joseph Medical Center.

The Simpson children are the first quadruplets in the hospital’s

61-year history, according to hospital officials.

They were also the first quadruplets delivered by Dr. Herald

Brundage, a 29-year veteran at the hospital. He estimated he has

helped bring between 5,000 to 6,000 babies into the world.

Although born seven weeks early, the healthy conditions of the

babies was mainly because Showalter, 30, was on complete bed rest

since October, Brundage said.

“She invested 25 weeks of her life just to get the babies where

they are at,” Brundage said.

The babies weigh between 4 and 5 pounds and range from 16 1/2

inches to 19 inches. Their incubators were lettered A through D for

the order they were born.

Upon learning that Showalter was expecting four children, the

couple went from excited to nervous to anxious.

Now that their children have been born, they wouldn’t want it any

other way, said Simpson, 36, a clinical psychologist. “It’s been so

wonderful, and seeing them all, and they are all so different,”

Simpson said. “We’re going to be sleep-deprived for a while, but it

will be worth it.”

The couple had been trying to have children for a while, and to

help the process, Showalter began to take Clomid, a fertility drug.

But the results of the drug in this case were unusual, Brundage

said.

“No more than 5% [of births] end up being multiple births, and

nine-tenths of those won’t be more than nonidentical twins,” Brundage

said. “She was on the lowest possible dose and still ended up with

quadruplets.”

Simpson, however, had a theory of his own for the new foursome.

“We ended up praying so hard for kids that God was like, ‘This

will shut them up,’” Simpson joked.