U.S. Army decision makers sorted through the intricacies of military protocol Wednesday, deciding whether a U.S. Army captain and mother of premature 3-month-old quadruplets would be ordered to ship out in February for Iraq.

U.S. Army Capt. Michelle Hinds, a Topsham native and dentist stationed at the Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., returned from medical leave two weeks ago. Still suffering from postpartum depression and with her responsibilities as a medical officer complicated by her role as mother to four newborns, Hinds said her situation was somewhat difficult to grasp.

“It’s hard for me to say at this point because it is literally changing minute to minute,” she said on the phone Wednesday from Fort Bragg. “At first I was told that I wouldn’t be getting out, that I would be going to Iraq for a year. This morning I was told that I wouldn’t be going at all. And just now I was told that I might be going for a couple of months and then coming back.”

The 28-year-old Hinds was caught off guard when orders arrived Tuesday informing her she would ship out with her unit in February. Her three-year enlistment on a Health Professions Scholarship Program agreement was slated to end July 1. The standard overseas rotation lasts one year and Hinds thought the question had passed.

“I just didn’t think that deployment was going to be an issue when I got back from maternity leave,” she said. “The Army as a rule doesn’t send people when you only have this little time left, but they are stretched so thin now that they are taking whatever they can get.”

Hinds gave birth Aug. 20 to four infants who were 10 weeks premature. She and her husband, Scott, a graduate student in economics at the University of North Carolina, took the children home in waves, the final two arriving early in October. All four are now healthy and happy, the captain said.

“They are just the size of newborns now, but they are a little more active than newborns,” she said. “Starting to smile and roll over and do all kinds of cute baby things.”

A Womack Army Medical Center spokeswoman said standard Army policy considers soldiers deployable six months after giving birth. The Army manual unfortunately says nothing about soldiers giving birth to quadruplets, and officials at the Army Medical Command in San Antonio and the public affairs office in Washington knew of no other instances of a soldier giving birth to quadruplets.

In emergency cases the Army does allow for hardship discharges. If Hinds chose that route, she would probably be obligated to repay the remainder of her educational agreement, according to spokesperson Martha Rudd with the Army public affairs office in Washington.

Hinds said she was keen to live up to her military duty, but a six-month allowance does not take into account the reality of mothering four newborns.

“That is the standard and everything,” she said, “but I have to believe this is a little different.”

The children are the first for the Hinds, who met while students at Mount Ararat High School in Topsham, ran together on the cross-country team and married in June 2000.

Michelle graduated from Tufts University in May 2001, and in July began her tour to repay the Army for covering three years of her education. She nearly shipped out when her unit was called up earlier this year, but then discovered she was pregnant.

The unit’s call-up was canceled shortly thereafter. This time around, with weary, homesick troops needing respite from ongoing hostilities in Iraq, the call-up looks like the real thing.

Rudd said the solemn pace of military process generally takes time to make its way through such unusual matters.

“Twenty-four hours to resolve a personnel situation certainly is not a long time,” Rudd said. “It can take much longer than that because the Army is complicated and it is a bureaucracy, particularly when it comes to things like personal assignments.”

Scott Hinds said the good news, bad news turnstile had quickly worn the already weary parents thin.

“It’s been a whirlwind 24 hours,” he said.