THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506020083
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
A SIGN OF HOW quadruplets can change your life is driven into the grass in front of the Taylor townhouse in Portsmouth.
It says, ``For Sale.''
Four babies, two adults and a small, two-bedroom townhouse just don't make it - especially once the babies start crawling.
And so Sandy and Tony Taylor, who, along with their 9-month-old quadruplets, who were profiled in The Virginian-Pilot in January, are hoping to sell their house and move to the country.
To a place with lots of bedrooms and lots of room for lots of children to run around.
In the past five months, the Taylor quadruplets have done more than grow. They've developed personalities.
There's Tatianah, the ``mother'' of the quads. Put her on the floor next her siblings and she scootches over and tries to kiss one of them. Smiling and flirting, she's the charmer of the four.
Breanah, the smallest, desperately wants to be a single child. Pick her up along with a sibling and she cries and tries to push her brother or sister away. ``She's in the wrong family,'' Sandy says.
Tyreef is the bully. ``He picks on everyone,'' Tony says. He's also the biggest, a chubby chunk of baby. Which means he's come the furthest. Because when Tyreef finally arrived home after four months in the hospital, he was the smallest, and he still had a tube in his stomach for feeding. One morning, he decided he'd had enough of the tube, and when Sandy went to get him, she found he'd pulled it out and was lying on it, grinning at her.
His brother, Shareef, is the pushover. ``He lets them do anything to him they want,'' Tony says. The other babies roll on top of him, lie on him, pat his head (hard!), and he just lies there, smiling, taking it all in.
He's also the only one with any lingering health problems - a duodenal hernia for which he'll eventually need surgery.
Although the babies are 9 months old, they haven't started crawling yet. Developmentally, they lag behind other infants their age because they were born 13 weeks early. They spent between six weeks and four months in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, coming home one by one by one by one.
When the article about the Taylors ran, they and the newspaper received hundreds of calls from people who wanted to help. Donations of diapers, clothes and baby equipment poured in. ``Please say thank you in the article,'' Sandy asked as this story was being prepared. ``I could never get enough thank-you cards written.''
In the original article on the quads, an expert in multiple births warned that the Taylors - who have no family in the immediate area to help - were at risk of becoming depressed, angry or frus-trated.
He should see them now. They're cheerful (if tired), sanguine and low-key. There is plenty of joy in their days, Sandy says.
There's the joy of watching Tyreef, the baby who had to be fed through a tube, eat.
Of seeing the girls' eyes light up when their daddy walks into the room and scoops them up into his powerful arms.
And of watching the scales go up on every visit to the pediatricians' office and getting a clean bill of health for these babies everyone doubted would survive. MEMO: The Taylor family will be on the telethon about 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
13th CHILDREN'S MIRACLE NETWORK TELETHON
Tina's, Jessica's and the Taylor quads' stories will be told, along
with hundreds of others, on the 13th Children's Miracle Network
Telethon, to be broadcast this weekend on WVEC, Channel 13.
Local segments of the telecast will originate at Children's Hospital
of The King's Daughters, one of 161 hospitals that benefit from the
national telethon. The only specialized children's hospital in Hampton
Roads, CHKD has 173 beds and more than 50 outpatient specialty programs
such as asthma, diabetes, sickle cell disease and cancer.
WVEC will broadcast live from the hospital lobby from 11:35 tonight
through 8 p.m. Sunday.
The national telethon raised more than $125 million last year, and
the local telethon broke the million-dollar mark for the first time.
To phone in pledges during the telethon, call 668-9000 or
1-800-216-6667. And listen to the story of miracles.
ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
THEN: Check with Sandy and Tony Taylor of Portsmouth, whose
quadruplets are thriving after spending six weeks to four months in
the hospital's intensive care unit after their premature birth.
NOW: RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
by CNB