MANY Swan Hill locals may remember the Tepper quads, who were born in 1997 at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne and resided in Swan Hill for 11 years.
The quads were not only embraced by the community, but almost adopted, and the support shown eventually led to the inception of the Multiple Birth Volunteer Support Foundation (MBVSF).
Kathy and Garry Tepper were shocked to learn that they were having quads at 17 weeks and when the quads came along 15 weeks prematurely, the newborns entered the Guinness Book Of Records as the earliest surviving quads to be born.
They ranged from 680 grams to 790 grams in weight.
Kathy remembers feeling overwhelmed at the Swan Hill and Kerang communities’ support when she finally brought her babies home.
“It was really hard for those first couple of years. I don’t know what we would have done without the community’s tremendous support,” she said.
Lynne Dunoon also resided in Swan Hill at the time and lived around the corner from the new mother of five (Kathy had a two-year-old daughter, Megan, at the time of the quads birth).
Ms Dunoon offered the new mum a hand and developed a volunteer network that would eventually lead to 120 volunteers from the area working in shifts to provide hands-on support to the family.
“It was amazing, we had volunteers helping us five days a week in four-hour shifts and without them I really don’t know how we would have coped,” she said.
“I will always be so grateful. People assisted us in a variety of ways including preparing meals and that was an enormous help.”
The Guardian caught up with Kathy Tepper this week to learn that the family is doing well and the quads remain very close.
“Our eldest daughter, Megan, is 21 and she is in her third year of medicine at university,” she said.
For more on this story, grab a copy of Monday’s Guardian (November 9).
