I’m a quad-mum but my babies have been born decades apart – it always baffles people but makes total sense to me
A MUM has revealed how she's pregnant with her fourth boy in a set of IVF quadruplets - who's due to be born 13 years after the first.
Tanis Larson, 44, and her husband, Dave, 47, a business owner, had their first child Kai, now 12, followed by two more IVF babies - Cruz, ten, and Clay, eight.
And when the IVF clinic asked if she wanted to use or ditch frozen embryos left on ice for more than a decade, they decided to give it a go.
Incredibly she fell pregnant - and is due to have a baby boy later this year.
The four boys are considered quads because they were conceived on the same day - and at the same time - through IVF, from the same batch of embryos.
Once the little one is born Tanis and Dave will have SIX kids - because she had two girls naturally, against the odds, after Clay was born.
Read more Pregnancy stories
"Every time we found out that I was pregnant it was more of a shock," Tanis, a stay-at-home mum, from Canada, said.
"We were going to be happy with one child, so to have five with six on the way is amazing.
"Last year we chose to go back and use the final two embryos but as they were 13 years old we only had a 20 per cent chance they were going to take.
"I feel like my husband and I are always open to things and have a lets do it attitude."
Tanis and her husband Dave, who always wanted at least three kids, had been trying to conceive for two years before they turned to IVF.
On November 1, 2010, Tanis had 13 healthy embryos to use.
"Because my husband and I were both in our 30s, we figured we better start the process sooner rather than later," Tanis said.
"We decided to do one round and now we have got four children out of it."
Kai, 12, was born in August, 2011, at 9:38pm, weighing 7lb 4oz at Foothills Hospital, Calgary, Canada.
"It was just an amazing feeling to find out we were pregnant," Tanis smiled.
"It was unexplainable, we couldn't believe it. We had tried for so long we couldn't believe it had worked the same time."
They went back to the IVF clinic when Kai was 13 months old for round two.
"We knew we had so many embryos so we wanted to use them and we wanted to have three children," Tanis explained.
"They decided that because they were frozen they would use two embryos which would give us a better chance to get one."
Cruz, 10, was born in January 2014, at 3:14am, weighing 7lbs 6oz.
Just over a year later, Tanis went back to the clinic and fell pregnant with Clay, eight, who was born in May 2016, at 3:18pm, weighing 7lbs 9oz.
Tanis said that having three boys was a "complete dream".
They moved into a newly renovated home with four bedrooms and they were "so happy".
The week they moved into the new home, Tanis found out she had fallen pregnant naturally with her daughter Suzy, born in January 2019, at 7:35pm weighing 7lbs 3oz.
"We had four boys and thought we were finished," Tanis said.
"We knew we had some embryos left that we might have gone back for but for us our family was complete.
"It was the most amazing feeling - the fact I was 39 and all of a sudden we became pregnant on our own."
Tanis was even more surprised when she fell pregnant with her fifth child in the summer of 2020 during the pandemic.
"Our doctor told us not to get Dave fixed as it was a miracle we fell pregnant naturally," she said.
"So we decided not to and I found out I was pregnant.
"Dave was like 'you can't be serious, this is not happening now we have this house and two extra kids.
"Each time he became more shocked - my poor husband."
Summer was born in May 2021, at 6:01am weighing 6lbs 1oz.
In 2023, Tanis received a call from her doctor at the IVF clinic who said she had two embryos left she could use or throw away.
Tanis and Dave decided to go through with the transfer and are expecting their sixth child and fourth through IVF in May 2024.
"It was a toss-up, we had two left and my husband and I thought about it for a while and decided to go through with it," Tanis explained.
"I am 32 weeks now and so far so good. All the scans show the baby doesn't have any complications.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
"It sounds very cliché but people should expect the unexpected.
"Mums who want a family should never give up - I want to give mums hope."
