Oh, Baby! Iowa Woman Has Septuplets

In a six-minute procedure in a Des Moines hospital delivery room jammed with doctors and nurses, an Iowa seamstress gave birth Wednesday to seven apparently healthy babies, only the second set of septuplets known to survive the womb.

Late Wednesday night, physicians at Iowa Methodist Medical Center said six of the seven septuplets born by caesarean section to 29-year-old Bobbi McCaughey were in serious condition. Their weights were considered good, ranging from 2 pounds, 5 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces. The seventh, Joel Steven, was at first listed in critical condition at 2 pounds, 15 ounces--a designation that doctors say is not immediate cause for alarm--but later upgraded to serious.

“As we delivered each baby and saw the signs of how vigorous they were, we were all very happy,” said Dr. Paula Mahone, who headed a staff of 40 delivery room personnel.

Kenneth Robert was born first at 12:48 p.m. CST, weighing 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Alexis May came next at 12:49, weighing 2 pounds, 11 ounces, followed by Natalie Sue, 12:50, 2 pounds, 10 ounces; Kelsey Ann, 12:51, 2 pounds, 5 ounces; Brandon James, 12:52, 3 pounds, 3 ounces; Nathanial Roy, 12:53, 2 pounds, 14 ounces; and then Joel Steven at 12:54.

In McCaughey’s hometown of Carlisle, a western Des Moines suburb of 3,200 people where friends and relatives had remained tight-lipped about the impending births, some people kept mum to the end.

Some did it in code.

“The snow geese have landed!” an ecstatic LaVena Owens heard over the phone from her sister, Linda Maynard, who works with Kenny McCaughey, the babies’ father, at a local Chevrolet showroom.

For many, it was the last time they had to “keep it in for the family’s sake,” said Owens, whose florist shop had become a central stop for townspeople to quietly share information about the septuplets. When they heard from Bobbi McCaughey’s father, Bob Hepworth, that the babies were in good health and Bobbi was “resting comfortably,” people finally let it all out in a flurry of glee.

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Cars honked in the town square. A few reporters even cheered when official word came. And soon enough, Owens was fielding calls from folks all around the country. One self-described “little old lady from Wichita” phoned in to ask: “Is this that little flower shop? I’ve got to tell you how happy I am for those kids.”

“Everybody is so goose-bumpy excited, and now they can finally talk about it,” said Carla Salmon, Owens’ assistant. “Seven babies. Mercy, mercy, what that must do to her body!”

The mother and her newborns were doing as fine as could be expected hours after such a complicated and nerve-racking birth. All seven children were breathing on ventilation machines, said Dr. David Alexander, Iowa Methodist’s medical director. The breathing apparatus is standard for multiple-birth, low-weight newborns, Alexander said.

He added that Joel’s initial critical listing was not cause for immediate concern. “It’s not at all unusual for babies delivered in this stage of pregnancy to be critical,” he said.

A team of 40 neonatal specialists, nurses and assistants crowded into the hospital’s delivery room early Wednesday, hours after McCaughey began contractions and decided to discontinue topical relaxants she had been using to delay birth. She had taken to bed nine weeks into the pregnancy and had carried the infants to 31 weeks before she and her husband decided Tuesday night that it was time.

McCaughey had been taking the fertility drug Pergonal, which was prescribed because she and her husband had trouble conceiving daughter Mikayla, who’s now almost 2 years old.

Kenny McCaughey’s co-workers at Wright Chevrolet said they thought something was up Tuesday. The billing clerk seemed distracted all day, said receptionist Brooke Wilson, even after the customary two calls from his wife. “He was all fidgety,” Wilson said. “When he left he still wasn’t sure, but he figured it’d be soon.”

Although doctors had earmarked the infants A to G as they delivered them, McCaughey and her husband had already named the children in advance of the C-section. As they observed each of the infants’ vital signs, doctors made notations to each of the names picked by the McCaugheys.

After months of watching them on ultrasound scans and charting their positions, “the parents already see them as individuals,” Mahone said.

Yet doctors were not sure late Wednesday whether any of the seven babies were identical twins. Tests would be performed over the next several days, Mahone said, to determine if any of the children are physical matches.

No one in Carlisle has laid plans yet for an official welcome-home ceremony--and there probably will not be one, Owens said. Low-key as always, Carlisle will do something for the McCaugheys, but in its own way.

“These children will be coming home one by one, and we can’t welcome one home any more than the other, now can we?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Blue Boots

Kenneth Robert

3lbs., 4oz.

Brandon James

3 lbs., 3 oz.

Nathanial Roy

2 lbs., 14 oz.

Joel Steven

2 lbs., 15 oz.

Pink Boots

Alexis May

2 lbs., 11 oz.

Natalie Sue

2 lbs., 10 oz.

Kelsey Ann

2 lbs., 5 oz.