He may have been thousands of kilometres away, but nothing was going to stop US soldier, Tony Burch, from being there at the birth of his quadruplets.
The 30-year-old army captain watched over Facetime from his deployment in South Korea as his wife Mary Pat, 29, gave birth to the four babies via caesarean section.
In a statement the AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center, in Hinsdale, Illinois, said Captain Burch was able to watch the entire birth.
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"The quadruplets are beautifully the same size, which is great," Kim Carmignani, director of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), said.
"We don’t like to see one growing more rapidly than the others because this can cause systemic problems. The doctors watched her closely. The Mom is so positive, it’s like she willed this.”
Mrs Burch said her husband was actually able to see their four babies before she was.
"He could see the babies as they were taken to the warmers and he got the rundown on how they were doing and how much they weighed," she said.
"We wanted a big family, but we thought we’d be able to spread it out more."
The quadruplets - Henry, three pounds, eight ounces; Nathaniel, three pounds, six ounces; Samuel, three pounds, two ounces and Molly, two pounds, 14 ounces - arrived safely on January 24 after doctors noticed a spike in Mrs Burch's blood pressure.
The couple already have a 23-month-old daughter Alice.
Captain Burch was able to come home briefly to meet his four new children before returning to his deployment in South Korea.
He will return home at the end of his tour of duty in June.
