Baker woman beats the odds with unexpected pregnancy

BAKER, La. (WAFB) - In cases of high-risk pregnancy, an expecting mom might be sent to a maternal-fetal medicine expert like Dr. Pamela Simmons from Woman’s Hospital.

Dr. Simmons explains she cares for the patients before delivery, making sure mom and baby do as well as they can during the pregnancy. Patients she might see include pregnancies with multiples, expecting moms with high blood pressure, or cases involving possible birth defects.

“Anything can happen,” said Dr. Simmons.

However, she’s never seen a case quite like that of Courtney Spears, a Baker woman expecting twins in the summer of 2022. Pregnancy involving twins or multiples is considered high risk because you’re dealing with two or more babies, which increases the possibility of complications in development. It also comes with more risks for mom.

“As that pregnancy grows, your body doesn’t necessarily know that you’ve got two versus one so that puts you at increased risk for other things to happen like preterm labor, preterm delivery, other things such as diabetes in pregnancy or high blood pressure in pregnancy and preeclampsia,” said Simmons.

However, it’s not the strong heartbeats of the two girls in Spears’ womb that make her pregnancy unique. It’s their siblings at home that set them apart. This is not the first time Spears and her husband, Everett Jones, have had twins.

“We have twins in our family, but I wasn’t expecting for me to be the one to have the twins, so it was exciting when we first found out about the boys.”

Ethan and Curtis were born in September of 2020. Spears says Ethan is the busy body of the two. Curtis tends to be calmer. The identical 17-month-olds are both toddling with chubby faces and eager squeals and giggles.

They were only a few months old, however, when mom and dad got another surprise. Spears was pregnant again, and again expecting twins. In July of 2021, girls Emory and Cassidy arrived.

“Cassidy, she’s the one sitting up she’s moving more. She’s a little feistier than Emory. Emory is the smallest one and is trying to get the hang of things,” said Spears.

The girls, while not identical, resemble their brothers and big sister Emanie who is five. At 7-months-old, they’re just starting to sit up and crawl. It appears walking isn’t far behind.

With five kids, the couple said they were content with their big family and Spears made the decision to undergo tubal ligation. However, someone, or rather two someone, had other plans.

“With this set, I thought they were showing me a picture from one of them and it was a joke. It was not a joke,” said Spears.

A few weeks after the surgery, Spears found out she had conceived just before the procedure. The pregnancy was so early, it went undetected before the surgery. When she went in later to be checked out, Spears learned she was once again expecting twins.

According to Dr. Simmons, the odds of having twins spontaneously, or without fertility intervention, are one in 1,000. Simmons says doing that three times in just two years, is unheard of.

“They were meant to be here,” laughed Spears.

Soon to be seven kids makes Spears and her family the Brady Bunch plus one. She said she knows on the outside it must seem overwhelming, but she and her husband are happy with their big family. They have a routine that keeps everything flowing and family to help out while mom and dad are working. While they’re looking for a new vehicle that can handle seven car seats, she said they have almost everything they need for the newest twins already.

“It’s fun, it’s tiring, of course, having one kid is tiring, but it’s fun,” said Spears. “They make us laugh. Just seeing the different things they do every day, every day it’s something new. They make us laugh a lot.”

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