For Septuplets’ Parents, a (Very) Full Nest at Last

With their father grinning and their mother crying, the world’s first surviving septuplets were together at home Sunday after the last two babies were released from a hospital.

Natalie and Alexis McCaughey joined their brothers and sister, who came home in January, in a small three-bedroom house in Carlisle, where about 60 volunteers work shifts to care for the babies.

“It’s great, finally, everybody under one roof,” said the babies’ father, Kenny McCaughey, carrying the bundled-up girls in separate car seats as the family left Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines.

The four boys and three girls were born Nov. 19, about nine weeks early.

Normally, doctors hope premature babies will be ready to go home around the date they would have been born if the pregnancy were carried to term.

However, Natalie and Alexis were held in the hospital longer because they didn’t eat as aggressively as their brothers and sister, said Wes Yoder, a spokesman for the family.

Natalie, weighing just 2 pounds, 10 ounces at birth, now weighs 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Alexis, who was 2 pounds, 11 ounces at birth, now weighs 5 pounds, 11 ounces.

McCaughey and his wife, Bobbi, went to the hospital with the rest of the septuplets: Kenneth, Joel, Brandon, Kelsey and Nathan. Older sister Mikayla also went along, as did Bobbi McCaughey’s parents.

“We brought them here for a small reunion,” McCaughey said. “It’s part of being a family.”

Natalie and Alexis spent 102 days in the hospital.

Firstborn Kenneth left the hospital Jan. 3. Brandon and Joel joined him nine days later, and Kelsey was released Jan. 16. Nathan was discharged Jan. 21.