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The quadruplet brothers born more than a DECADE apart: Mother-of-five, 44, reveals she is pregnant with her FOURTH baby from same set of IVF embryos – 13 YEARS after she gave birth to the first sibling

A 44-year-old mom is pregnant with her fourth baby from the same set of frozen embryos and is set to give birth 13 years after she had her first child through in-vitro fertilization (IVF). 

Tanis Larson and her 47-year-old husband, Dave, welcomed baby boy Kai, now 12, in 2011, before having two more IVF babies: Cruz, 10, and Clay, eight. 


After having three IVF babies, the Canada-based couple had two kids naturally – Suzy, five, and Summer, three – and then kept the remaining two embryos frozen.

And when the couple got a call from their doctor asking if they wanted to use the remaining two embryos that were left on ice for more than a decade, Tanis and Dave jumped at the opportunity and are now expecting their sixth child – and their fourth boy in a set of IVF quadruplets.   



HOW DOES IVF WORK?

 The menstrual cycle is first suppressed with medication before other drugs are used to encourage the ovaries to produce more eggs than usual.

An ultrasound scan is carried out to check the development of the eggs, and medication is used to help them mature.

The eggs are then collected by a needle inserted into the ovaries, via the vagina, before the eggs are fertilised with sperm.


Finally the fertilised embryo is transferred into the womb to grow and develop.   


A single IVF cycle has an average success rate of 32.3 per cent for those under 35, dropping to five per cent for women aged 43 and 44 and only 1.9 per cent for those 45 and older.  

Despite IVF being most effective for the under 35s, 57 per cent of IVF cycles are undergone by women 35 or older.


Tanis is due to give birth to the 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.

The stay-at-home noted that each pregnancy was a surprise to the couple. 

She said: ‘Every time we found out that I was pregnant it was more of a shock. 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 “let’s do it” attitude.’


The parents, 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. We decided to do one round and now we have got four children out of it,’ she said.

Kai was born in August 2011 at 9:38 p.m., weighing 7lb 4oz at Foothills Hospital in Calgary, Canada.


The mom-of-six loved being pregnant and was overjoyed to experience motherhood. 


She added: ‘It was just an amazing feeling to find out we were pregnant. 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.


Tanis said: ‘We knew we had so many embryos so we wanted to use them and we wanted to have three children.

‘They decided that because they were frozen they would use two embryos which would give us a better chance to get one.’

And it worked, Cruz, 10, was born in January 2014.



Just over a year later, Tanis returned to the clinic again and fell pregnant with Clay, who was born in May 2016.

The mom noted 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.

The pregnancy came as a complete shock to the couple, who said they thought they were done having children.  


Tanis said: ‘We… thought we were finished. 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.’

Their fifth baby, Summer, was born in May 2021. 


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.

She noted that she hoped her experience inspired other moms who were looking to have children later in life. 



‘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 said.

‘I am 32 weeks now and so far so good. All the scans show the baby doesn’t have any complications.

‘It sounds very cliché but people should expect the unexpected. Moms who want a family should never give up – I want to give moms hope.’


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