Our Story
Kitsap County now has their first set of Quintuplets! Anniston, Belle, Camilee, Scarlet and Weston were born on March 30, 2006. We are gathering together as a Community to help Mike and Courtnee Stevenson as they raise these beautiful babies and support them as they go through this monumental journey!
“It takes a Village to raise a Child”
History
Mike Stevenson is 33 and Courtnee is 31. Their first daughter Lilli is now 5 years old.
Mike and Courtnee’s relationship began over 17 years ago as childhood sweethearts. They were married in 2001. They wanted to have children, but Courtnee was diagnosed with Amenorrhea, which is in inactive menstrual cycle. To become pregnant, they had to go to a fertility clinic. After taking Pergonal to stimulate her menstruation, Courtnee then received intrauterine insemination (IUI).
The IUI was successful and their first daughter Lilli Stevenson was born October 3, 2002. She was a full term baby without complications. Mike and Courtnee were thrilled to have a child, and hoped to have more.
They live near Keyport in their 900 sq. ft. mobile home located on 1-1/2 acres. This is a very small home, and they were ready for something larger. By 2003 Lilli was nearly a year old and Mike was half way through an electrical apprenticeship. They decided it was time to build a much larger house on their lot so they could finally move out of the tiny mobile home they were in.
Their plan was to build a place large enough that Courtnee could have a daycare in the lower level. This way she could earn extra income while staying home with Lilli. Having the extra space and extra income would also allow them to have another child. They figured that once the house was under construction, they would go back to the fertility clinic and go through the IUI process again.
Unfortunately, the permit process for their new home took much longer than they expected. It wasn’t until September of 2005 that everything was finally approved and ready to go for the new home. Not wanting to wait any longer for another child, they headed to the Seattle Reproductive Medicine (http://www.seattlefertility.com/) fertility clinic that same month.
Courtnee was first put on daily injections of Repronex (similar to Pergonal) into her stomach in order to stimulate her follicles (containing the eggs). This caused her follicles to grow to a more normal size, rather than remain small and immature. Doctors monitored the size of the follicles as a way to determine when she was ready for IUI. They were looking for a follicle size of at least 20mm.
After 12 straight days of injections, her largest follicle was just 19.8mm. This was slightly under the hoped for 20mm, but the doctors felt it might be enough. It was decided that they were ready to insert the sperm. Since most follicles were still well under 20 mm, doctors said there would only be a very small chance for any pregnancy.