Woman Is Shocked to Learn She’s Pregnant with Quintuplets. At 23 Weeks, Her Entire World Changes

Hannah Merton still recalls her doctor’s stunned reaction when a week five ultrasound revealed she was expecting quintuplets.

“Her face just went completely white,” Merton tells PEOPLE. “She had to pull a stool out from behind her, sat down, reached over, touched my arm, and said, ‘I think I see four or five.’”

“I was like, ‘Four or five what? What are you talking about? There’s no way you mean four or five babies,’” Merton remembers. “I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it.”

But as the ultrasounds continued, it became clear: there were “five strong heartbeats.”

“We had to put our trust in God,” Merton shares. “We wanted to move forward with the pregnancy. We wanted to have all five of them.”

Merton married her husband at 18, and they always dreamed of having children. Yet after two years of trying, it wasn’t happening. Diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, she began fertility medication, and shortly afterward, discovered she was pregnant with quintuplets.

Her pregnancy was far from easy. At 23 weeks, during a routine ultrasound, doctors discovered her cervix had thinned significantly and immediately admitted her to the hospital. While there, she began having contractions, though doctors managed to stop labor and sent her home.

A week later, contractions returned, and this time, doctors told her there was nothing they could do to prevent an early delivery.

“I think there were 100 people,” Merton recalls about the delivery room — including a medical team for each baby. “It was insane.”

Because her babies arrived so prematurely—the biggest weighing just 1 pound and 13 ounces, the smallest 1 pound and 4 ounces—they were all given breathing tubes and quickly transferred to the children’s hospital for intensive care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Tragically, her smallest baby was diagnosed with a grade four brain bleed and passed away three days after birth.

“We couldn’t really mourn properly,” Merton says. “As much as we wanted to just go home and not get out of bed for a week, we didn’t have a choice. We had to be at the hospital every day for our other kids.”

In the months that followed, several of her babies faced health challenges, sometimes requiring emergency hospital visits in the middle of the night. Another daughter was later diagnosed with a brain bleed that caused cerebral palsy, and one son needed a tracheostomy tube to help with breathing while in the NICU.

Finally, over the next year, Merton and her husband were able to bring their four surviving children home, one by one.

Giving birth in early 2020, during the height of the pandemic, meant strict visitor restrictions at the hospital. Yet Merton describes the community response as “the craziest thing.”

Even before the babies were born, her town organized a baby shower, and support continued for over a year after their arrival.

“I did not have to buy diapers for the first year and a half,” Merton says. “People gave us car seats, strollers, tons of clothes, baby toys—anything we needed.”

Though she wasn’t initially active on social media, Merton began sharing her journey while her babies were still in the NICU.

“It wasn’t about going viral,” she explains. “I posted, and suddenly thousands of people were watching and commenting. I thought, ‘What is happening right now?’”

Today, Merton has grown her TikTok following to nearly 700,000 people. Her children are preparing to start kindergarten, and she recently welcomed a new 1-year-old. She’s aiming to keep sharing consistently online to eventually save for a bigger family car—her current one barely fits all five kids.

Beyond social media, the community Merton has built means a lot. “It’s amazing,” she says. “It feels so good knowing there are people who have cared about me for years—they care about my family and want to see me succeed.”

She’s even had the chance to connect with other mothers of multiples. In June, she joined 18 moms who have all had quadruplets for a gathering in Utah, where they shared stories and advice.

Merton sums it up: “I’m just trying to grow a community—moms supporting moms is my goal.”