Four of a kind makes ‘six-pack’ for Edwards family
by Senior Airman Jet Fabara
95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
10/25/2004 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- As parents prepare to pick costumes for their children this Halloween, the Kearl family here will pick out six -- two for 3-year-olds Tanner and Hunter and four for 1-year-old quadruplets Cassie, Nathan, Jayson and Bryan.
The Kearl family was stationed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., when Capt. Jay Kearl was selected to attend the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School here as a student.
“As for how the quadruplets came to be, I was eight weeks pregnant when I went in for an ultrasound and was told that I was going to have triplets,” Jackie Kearl said. “My husband was in Iraq at the time, so I e-mailed him and told him we were going to be having triplets.
“To my surprise, it wasn’t until one week later that we went in for another ultrasound because it seemed like I was having some complications,” she said. “The doctor then went on to ask us how many babies we thought we were having, and that’s when he said it was four.”
The quadruplets were born Oct. 24, 2003.
As for the preparation, Mrs. Kearl said she does not know if someone can really prepare for something like this.
“You take it one day at a time and do what you can when the moment comes at you,” she said.
“My advice to those who might be expecting quadruplets is that they should love every moment of it because it goes by so fast,” Mrs. Kearl said. “So just take each day at a time, or even one hour at a time, because at times it could seem so overwhelming.”
As for how Captain Kearl handles the situation, he said he does not see it as a liability. He sees it as a positive thing.
“It’s nice to come home to six smiling faces after a day at work,” Captain Kearl said.
On a given week, the Kearls typically go through 224 diapers, 798 ounces of formula, 112 jars of baby food and do about 21 loads of laundry.
“You can sort of say that the base commissary knows us pretty well,” Mrs. Kearl said.
Even with the hours Captain Kearl spends attending test pilot school, the family still manages time together, despite what most people may think.
“He works about 12 hours a day, so the time that we have, we try to make it as special as we can,” Mrs. Kearl said. “When he’s home, he spends as much time as he can with the kids, and we try and spend as much time together as we can on the weekends.”
While in North Carolina, Mrs. Kearl said volunteers who helped with the babies were invaluable.
She also said the base exchange there donated various baby supplies to help the family get situated with supplies when the quadruplets were born.
“The whole quadruplet experience is interesting, but we feel so blessed to have all our miracle children and to have the Air Force as a second family because they’ve made sure to help us when we needed it,” Mrs. Kearl said. |
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