By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer

SOUTHHALL—At the Olesen home, blessings come in fours.

On Nov. 13, Taylor, Tyler, Kyle and Connor were born, nearly three months early. Four months later all four boys were home. Four hungry mouths to feed, four diapers to change at a time, four babies to take to the doctor, four infants that need love and attention from their parents.

Amid all of the chaos were their mother and father, a couple who desperately wanted and prayed for their boys to live. Their sons, with a will to survive, didn’t let their parents down.

On May 14, Angie Olesen celebrated her first Mother’s Day. She stood up at Prince of Peace Church in Buford and was recognized and honored along with the other moms. But Angie had already counted her blessings.

“It was a great day,” she said. “All four boys pooped and all four slept at least six hours. That’s definitely a good day.”

The joys of motherhood can be simple. But the battle fought by Angie and her husband, Doug, to be parents was wrought with complications.

The couple met while at school at Ohio State University. Angie, a high school science teacher, and Doug, a financial planner, tried for five years to conceive. After two miscarriages, the Olesens turned to fertility drugs and then learned Angie was pregnant with quadruplets.

Their first reaction, Angie said, was one of shock, which then turned into fear. Her fears were not unwarranted. Angie’s pregnancy was both traumatic and sacred.

On bed rest for three and a half months, Angie spent her days reading the Bible, praying and dreaming of holding her sons. It was during this time that Angie relied on her faith. She imagined herself in God’s hands.

After a 27-week term, Angie gave birth to four boys.

“We were told when I delivered that they could be blue, but they came out pink and wiggly, so we knew that was a good sign,” she said.

But the boys were not out of trouble. Collectively, they suffered from many medical problems. Taylor’s condition was especially critical. He had bleeding on his brain and there was a good chance he was not going to make it. But prayer produced miracles. The Sisters of Notre Dame from Angie’s hometown in Ohio prayed especially for Taylor.

“He was the first baby to take a bottle, the first baby to come home,” Angie said. “It’s like a wave of prayer that washed over us.”

Angie often shows friends the pictures of her boys when they were first born. “If anyone does not believe in miracles, they have not seen the pictures of these boys when they were first born.”

On an exceptionally busy day, Angie can feed three babies at once. She can balance one bottle on her foot and hold the other two. But she’d rather not. She knows that each of her boys needs her individual love and attention. She dreamed of holding each one of them while she lay in bed during her pregnancy, talking to her unborn sons and praying for the day that they could be together.

That togetherness was something the Olesens wanted from the beginning. Unfortunately, limited space in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital would not allow all four babies to be in the same room.

“We wanted them together so badly,” Angie said. “It was so hard to have them apart.”

But the hardest part was yet to come. After six days Angie had to leave the hospital without her sons.

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to leave without them,” Angie said, fresh tears still springing at the memory.

Each day Angie and Doug would travel to Northside Hospital in Atlanta to see their sons.

“I would take my rosary beads and I would lay over the top of the incubator and just pray that they would feel that comfort that I felt when I was pregnant,” she said. “I thought about Mary a lot because if anyone would know how hard it was for me to watch my sons suffer, it was her.”

After many surgeries, the boys came home in stages.

First was Taylor on Jan. 18, followed by Kyle 12 days later, then Tyler on Feb. 19 and finally Connor on March 28. Angie still looks at her sons with wonder.

“I’m so small, my pregnancy was so bad,” she said. “I just can’t believe they’re really here.”

Doug remembers how he felt as each son came home, and then the realization that four sons in one home was going to be a challenge.

“One child was great, then two was ‘hey, this is not too bad,’ three, you’re like ‘oh my gosh,’ and then with four, you pretty much have someone upset all the time,” he said. “I think we may have underestimated the complexity of it.”

But Dad is ready. He’s already decided that his sons will be boys and will love sports as much as he does.

Angie jokes about being the sole female in the home.

“If I could just have a bathroom, maybe a closet, to myself where I could put up some flowers and maybe some pink towels, I’ll be fine,” she said.

The Olesen house is a lot quieter than one would expect. Visitors come in and sometimes may even catch all four boys taking naps. Angie is the model of organization. A dry erase board indicates the last diaper change, the last bottle and the last nap. If one of the babies cries, the board can be the saving grace.

Four huge notebooks chronicle every move the babies make, from baths to medicine, to naptime, to feedings, to doctor visits.

Parishioners from Prince of Peace Church have adopted the Olesens and have provided a tremendous amount of services.

“We have had meals, money, food, diapers—you name it,” Doug said. “Practically every week we go to the church, someone has dropped off diapers.”

That means a lot to a family who goes through 32 diapers a day.

Volunteers also come by the house to help Angie while Doug continues his work as a financial planner.

Helen Jirka comes once a week. Her reasons are simple.

“When you ask her, (Angie will) say, ‘I need help for my boys,’” she said. “She has to try to get this one fed and then three more. She needs people and so do her babies.”

Jirka, the mother of a teenager, said she enjoys her time with the babies thoroughly.

“All they need is just a little rock and a hug; it’s simple when they are babies,” she said. “I’ve never been one to turn my back on someone who needs help.”

Tessa Sulimirski heads the task of organizing meals for the family.

“We have a strong sense of community at Prince of Peace,” she said. “We feel a sense of ownership with them. We feel, in a way, like they’re ours.”

Sulimirski said that Angie inspires her.

“I don’t know how she does it,” she said. “She’s always upbeat. She’s a saint.”

But Angie insists that it’s just a matter of staying organized.

“It’s not as hard as people think,” she said. “They all have needs, they all want attention. It’s just a matter of prioritizing.”

Faith became a strong priority while Angie was pregnant. Doug, who was raised in the Lutheran church, attended initiation classes and became a Catholic this past Easter.

“Prince of Peace is like a big family,” he said. “To become involved there just felt like the right thing to do.”

“With (the babies) coming, we knew that this was the time for Doug to become Catholic,” Angie said. “He is a role model as a father and this gives our family unity.”

Angie is grateful to her husband who has truly been there for better and for worse.

“He has been through so much, watching me and not being able to have any control over this,” she said. “While I was on bed rest, he waited on me hand and foot. A lot of times, he would just sit with me and read to me.”

Both Doug and Angie are grateful to their church community.

“Everyone comes here and shares themselves. We are so connected with so many people in so many ways,” Angie said. “I don’t have any biological family in Georgia, but I sure do have family.”

At first, Angie admits that it was hard for her to be dependent upon others, but she has learned how valuable service can be for everyone involved.

“We have to accept help on behalf of our children,” she said. “I have realized that when people help, it’s really beneficial to all of us.”

Doug agrees. “It’s a win-win situation,” he said. “It’s rewarding to them and it’s most definitely rewarding for us.”

As each child grows, Angie and Doug can already recognize separate personalities. The young mother coos over her children when they cry, using terms of endearment such as “peanut” and never losing her patience.

“There is no doubt in my mind that they are miracles,” she said. “I always believed in miracles, but there is no doubt in my mind that they came straight from God’s special delivery.”

As for the future, Angie’s wish for her sons is simple.

“When I was pregnant, I had to believe in my body, I had to believe in my sons, I had to believe in the doctors and, above all, I had to believe in God. For the longest time, I didn’t know if we would have living children,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I just want them to grow up. They don’t have to do anything else. I’m just glad they’re here.”