IOWA: A couple got the surprise of their lives 20 years ago when the doctor informed them that they are expecting not one but SEVEN babies!
The mother Bobbi McCaughey made history by giving birth to seven children at once!
She and her husband Kenny already had one daughter, Mikayla. By 1997, they felt ready for another child, and Bobbi, who struggled with fertility, started a steady regimen of the fertility drug Metrodin.
A few months later the couple was overjoyed when they found out that they were expecting again. However, the ultrasound revealed a huge surprise: Bobbi was pregnant with seven children! No woman had ever delivered so many at once before.
With a risk that gloomed over their happiness, their doctor recommended the selective reduction method which would reduce the number of embryos in her womb.
But the expecting parents denied and put all their faith in God.
Then the big day came. On November 19, Kenny Jr., Alexis, Natalie, Kelsey, Nathan, Brandon, and Joel were born, all within six minutes of one another. They made history as the first surviving septuplets.
Bobbi and Kenny were unsure how to deal with seven newborns at first, but luckily they weren’t alone. Thanks to local news coverage, generous donations of baby supplies came flooding in.
The most generous of the donors even gave the McCaugheys a 5,000 square foot house!That was pure luck, because a family that big surely takes up quite a bit of space
.A lot of locals also volunteered to care for the babies.
The McCaugheys were such a media sensation that Time featured them in an issue and Oprah Winfrey invited them to appear on her show.
But there came a time when all that that media attention became too much. People who read about the miracle babies started showing on their door at any hour of the day and asked to hold and take photos with the septuplets.
Many people advised to the couple that they protect their family from such invasion as it may cause harm to their normal lives.
Bobbi and Kenny took that to heart. The family still made a bit of a spectacle wherever they went, but they politely requested that the cameras and reporters give them some privacy.
The septuplets had a wonderful childhood, one filled with family gatherings and shared birthday parties.
At age 16, all of them learned to drive at the same time! By that we mean they would take turns behind the wheel, not that they all steered at once. The situation was already chaotic enough for mom and dad!
Now that they’re empty nesters, Kenny and Bobbi say they wouldn’t have raised their family any other way.
That being said, they are glad to have some more time to themselves, while still having their kids very close by.
