An Ohio couple experienced a miracle times four after the devastating death of their daughter in 2022.
Parents Meri and Andrew Ferrari, of Lorain, welcomed quadruplets Mikayla, Alex, Luca, and Hunter last August, according to UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.
“I feel almost whole,” mom Meri told NBC affiliate WKYC. “There’s still a little piece missing, but I know she’s here. I know she’s watching over them. I feel like she helped bring them here.”
The Ferraris, who are also parents to 8-year-old daughter Paige, welcomed daughter Lacy in Dec. 2020. Meri, a nurse, was 30 weeks pregnant and battling COVID in the ICU when doctors decided to perform an emergency cesarean section to save both of their lives.
“She was a fighter,” Meri told WKYC of her late daughter.
Tragically, Lacy died in her sleep when she was just over a year old. According to the family, she died from sudden unexpected infant death syndrome complicated by COVID and rhinovirus.
“Losing Lacy was definitely, I can honestly say, the most painful thing I’ve ever been through,” Andrew told Spectrum News last year.
A year after Lacy’s death, the couple talked about having another child and then underwent fertility treatments. Still, Meri and Andrew were surprised to learn that they were expecting quadruplets.
“We saw two babies on the ultrasound at first,” Meri told Spectrum News. “I’m thinking okay twins, we can do that, because I’m a twin, so I was like okay.’ ”
“Then the ultrasound tech goes, ‘Well here’s heartbeat number three’ and I’m like okay in my mind ‘I’m like triplets, we can do triplets, triplets are okay’ and she’s like, ‘Here’s heartbeat number four,’ ” she continued.
On August 19, 2024, at just over 33 weeks, Alexander, Luca, Mikayla and Hunter Ferrari were born (in that order), according to UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, which noted that the kids also left the hospital’s NICU in that order.
Now that the quads are home, Meri told WKYC that “time management goes out the window, but there’s always a way.”
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The couple previously told Spectrum News that they believe the quadruplets were a gift from Lacy.
Said Andrew, “It makes me want to cry sometimes cause I miss that kid so much, but at the same time I love the fact that each one of them has a little bit of her, so she sorta lives on.”
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