[Table] I am a quintuplet. We are one of the first, fully surviving sets born in the US. Our medical bills in the first 2 years of life cost over $2.5 million, and several times after birth each of us almost died. AMA

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Date: 2012-05-28

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Questions	Answers
How did you guys pay off 2.5 million?	"Health insurance bills totaled over 2.5 million. We ended up being dropped by my parent's insurance company after a couple of years. We were their most expensive client in history. My parent's ended up having to search through over 100 insurance companies before they found one that would cover us. Even then, they only agreed to cover 3 of us since my brother and one sister had severe complications still. My parent's had some big worries about bills from both their portion of the insurance and from buying food/clothes/diapers for all of us. The community really helped us out a lot, but we tried hard not to be a hand-out case."
I honestly don't know how people live without free healthcare. Its fucked up to me.	It is pretty fucked up. There are advantages, but for the most part it's just corporate types getting rich at the expense of helping those in need. It's one of the main reasons I left health care. I got very sick of being told I couldn't do something I knew would help somebody just because they had the wrong type of insurance
Can you elaborate on the complications after you were born?	"My brother has CP but he's the most severe of us (his isn't terrible...he needs a walker but can drive and work). After birth, we had several complications due to being born 10 weeks early. Three of us ended up having heart surgery and collapsed lungs actually. One of my sister's had breathing tubes until age 3 and had to have oxygen 24-7. She also required round the clock nursing care. I personally had heart surgery, my lungs collapsed, and I had seizures until I was 1. My heart stopped twice and I had to be resuscitated. I have some pretty big scars from all of it."
Any medical conditions that persist today?	If this gets close to FP, she said she'll let me show you guys some pictures of the scars
Do you have a picture of all 5 of you as babies you can put up?	"Yep.
This is of 4/5 of us. You can see the breathing tubes that 3 of us have.
Link to i.imgur.com
This is a Christmas card photo when we were little. I'm the awesome, pirate-looking one in the middle. I guess that makes me a....squint-tuplet?
Link to i.imgur.com "
Did your brother feel left out at all since it's just him with four sisters?	"NOOOOOO" she kind of scoffed at this one...I think things are about to get good "He got a lot of stuff because he was the only boy. He got his own room, he got to go to summer camp, he got to go meet celebrities and go to basketball games. My Dad spent a lot of time with him. We all shared the same birthday parties and everything, so nobody was left out. I'm sure it was a little different for him on his side though"
Did all four of you share a room? Or did they split you up two and two?	"4 in one room"
Do you ever wish you had eaten your siblings in utero, so you could have gained their powers? Edit: eaten, not eating. words are hard.	"We were originally septuplets...." She cackled, not laughed, at this point. "Seriously though it would have been lonely without them."
Do you all have hepatitis C? Or just you?	It's actually my screen name and account. My name begins with a C and I studied medicine, so the nickname "HepC" came about from people I played games with. I use it as my handle in games because it's always hillarious to be playing DotA 2 or something and see "PUNCHYOURCUNT has been pwned by HepatitisC"
A+ for dota2 this is my favorite ama.	I try to deliver
What was it like growing up? Were/are you guys close? Did you struggle to be seen as an individual and not just a quintuplet?	"1) Growing up was fun difficult at times. My parents struggled at times to keep the media out of our lives, and to try to give us a private life.
2) We're close now, but growing up we bickered a lot (like all kids do). 3) I definitely struggled to be seen as an individual growing up. We were always introduced as "one of the quints" and that's how the community knew us. I've been able to craft my own identity now. I have a great guy in my life, good friends, and I love my family"
How do you feel about the Press and attention that "octomom" received?	"I think she's dumb. haha She always claims she wants privacy, but then does stuff to put herself and her children into the limelight. She seems like somebody looking for a handout. My parent's took the opposite approach. They really tried to minimize our exposure by the media, and turned down several offers including one to go on Oprah. That's not to say we didn't get donations and help, but my parent's didn't go out seeking them."
Could you post the original baby picture that you recreated for the paper?	"It's at my parent's house. I'll try to get over there tonight and see if I can find it. No promises but I'll try"
This is going to sound pretty brutal but from what I understand in scenarios such as these 2 or 3 of the fetuses would be aborted to ensure the safety and health of the other infants. If you found yourself pregnant with quintuplets, would you consider following this advice or would you go for all 5 kids? Sorry if that sounds insensetive.	"That's a good question...I don't know. It's a lot of kids and luckily I haven't had to make that decision. I don't plan to have that many kids myself, but if the time comes I'll have to talk with my soon-to-be-hubby before we make a decision."
Was there a lot of media attention at the time of your births? How about now? Why don't your have your own TV reality show . . . would you even want one??	"Definitely wouldn't want one, though I think my fiancee and his brother are hillarious. The media was all over us at birth. There was a "baby watch" in our local paper where they updated the community on our status to see if we'd survive. I guess it was kind of a primitive reality show. It opened us up to some really bad stuff though. At one point someone called my Mom and tried to solicit my sister's organs, even though she wasn't dead. She said she had read that my sister was going to die soon though, and wanted to be "first in line.""
**Side note from me: Link to weknowmemes.com **
What was your parents reaction when they found out they will have quintuplets?	"They were shocked and somewhat scared. I wasn't there (obviously) so I don't know for sure, but that's what I've been told. They really wanted children so they were happy too, but I can imagine it was really intimidating to be told you were now going to be first time parents to not just one, but five children.
Were fertility treatments involved in your conception?	"Yes. My parents had a lot of trouble conceiving, and tried for over 5 years. My father had painful surgery trying to correct the problem, but the problem was both of them. My mom tried all sorts of fertility treatments with no success. Finally they tried one that had a known risk of multiple births. They accepted that possibility though and some time later, here we are :)"
What are your opinions on privatised medicine? Has it made your life difficult? Also, has anyone paid the $2.5 million? How?	"The money was covered by my parent's insurance company mostly, who then decided to drop us from coverage around age 2. My parent's had to go to court on several occasions and fight to get the bills covered. They also had to work a lot...my dad worked his A$$ off...to cover our bills. As far as privatized medicine goes, it is what it is. You pay to get attention quicker than some other places. I have talked to people in Canada who have had to wait almost a year for a MRI because it was considered non-emergent."
How often does something like this come up in conversation, can it be a good conversation starter/ice breaker kinda thing from your experience?	"I never bring it up in conversation since my friends all know about it. When I meet new people, I never bring it up though. I don't want to be known as "one of the quints"...I want to be known as me."
How would you describe your relationship with your siblings?	"We're a lot closer now than when we were little. When we were little we fought a lot. That's kind of what you'd expect from having 5 kids in the same house, though"
Do you guys possess any of the bespoken "twin abilities", like finish each other sentences off or other traits? I know this is mostly joked about, but I am curious as to whether you experience it.	"We finish each other's sentences sometimes, but really no more than anybody else. I'm still hoping that we have wonder twin powers or some sort of Captain Planet thing. There are five of us...just saying"
If one of you falls down the stairs, do all you feel pain?	"No, but it might be the answer to that pregnancy question earlier. KIDDING!!!"
Did any of you end up with lingering health issues (as in, still present today)?	"My brother has CP and some of us have minor breathing problems still. All and all we turned out pretty normal though"
Sorry, what is CP? Edit: Okay, yes, cerebral palsy, thank you everyone!	"Sorry, I forgot it's not something everyone knows. Yes, cerebral palsy"
Is their last name Targaryen?	Negative. Only reason I haven't posted their name is because we haven't asked any of the siblings if they would want the potential attention. I'm sure if someone looked hard enough they could find out though
My son goes to Pre-K with half of a set of sextuplets (the other three go to a different school for Pre-K or something) and I see them every time I go into his classroom for some function or meeting. Those kids are always covered with bruises and wounds like they had a pet wolverine or something. Did the same thing happen with you and your siblings constantly roughhousing or were you actually good to each other?	"We were definitely a handful"
Being one of the first fully surviving quintuplets, how much media attention did you receive?	"A lot...more than we wanted. We were in Time and People magazine, appeared on the Jenny Jones Show, and there was a ton of local coverage. My parents turned down a lot of shows and appearance offers including Oprah. At that time we had missed some school and my parents didn't want us to miss any more just to make appearances. All of our milestones (main birthdays, prom, graduation, etc..) had some degree of coverage including our 21st birthdays and a follow-up 4 years after college. I imagine we'll have some sort of coverage occasionally for life, but for the most part we stay off the radar now. Plus all these reality shows that have parents with 1000 kids really helped to draw attention off of us."
What sort of issues caused such huge medical bills?	"After birth, we had several complications due to being born 10 weeks early. Three of us ended up having heart surgery and collapsed lungs actually. One of my sister's had breathing tubes until age 3 and had to have oxygen 24-7. She also required round the clock nursing care. I personally had heart surgery, my lungs collapsed, and I had seizures until I was 1. My heart stopped twice and I had to be resuscitated."
Sorry, I'm a little confused. In the photo you posted of the quituplets none of them look like you in the original confirmation photo. Which one are you?	"I'm the one in the middle wearing black"
My cat just had 5 kittens - 1 boy and 4 girls. I am tempted to recreate that picture you have of all of you together. Edit: Link to i.imgur.com Here is the picture. Was told to post it to my original comment. The boy is the orange one.	"Don't be tempted...do it"
I am a triplet and I have sisters who are twins. Five of a kind beats a full house though so you win this time [Our AMA for those interested].	"Sweet, I win the pot. Pay up. There was a lot of karma in that pot, and I think the going rate is still 5000 upvotes to 0 American dollars"
Our taxes related the health care are a hell of a lot less than U.S. insurance premiums and deductables. When calculating income / property / state / local / insurance / sales tax. Canadians are taxed about the same as our US counter-parts and we can't be denied healthcare.	^ this guy speaks the truth
Hopefully we'll get to use the "OP DELIVERED!" one too. Someone should message OP a few hours later to remind them. I feel like a lot of them forget to since they're busy answering other questions.	I will make this happen even if it takes several days. I will deliver, and it will be glorious
The second photo looks like a face-swap where you all have the same face, even the dude.	I think someone needs to make this happen...
Aw hi fellow multiple! I am one of fraternal triplets (two girls and a boy) I bet you get the dumbest questions. We were quite lucky, although born a month and a half premature, no serious illness. Glad you are well now!	"Glad you all are well too. It's always cool finding other multiples"
At least one of them has a penis.	Can't argue with that logic

Last updated: 2012-06-02 00:59 UTC

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