McCaughey Septuplets TLC (VIDEO) World's First Suviving Children Turn 13 (PHOTOS)

By: Susan Harris
Staff Writer
Published: Dec 31, 2021

McCaughey Septuplets TLC - World's first suviving turn 13. McCaughey septuplets are featured in a TLC special to talk about their struggles. The family has had a lot of challenges and triumphs.

It all began on Nov. 19, 1997, when Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey, a devout couple from Carlisle, Iowa, found themselves thrust into the national spotlight when they gave birth to three girls and four boys -- the first set of surviving septuplets in the history of humankind.

They already had a daughter, Mikayla, who was nearly 2 when the multiples were born. The septuplets, who were conceived while Bobbi McCaughey was taking a fertility drug, were initially given almost no chance of survival.

"It isn't a joke when people say enjoy them, because it happens so quickly," Bobbi McCaughey told NBC's "Today" show. "Sometimes you think it will last forever and that there will be another tomorrow just like this, but it is not. It changes so fast."

During the early months, the septuplets drank 42 bottles a day and went through 52 diapers. These days, the family spends $300 a month on groceries, shopping at food warehouses and growing their own produce. They also do 10 loads of laundry per week and they have two refrigerators, two dishwashers and two freezers.

"They've gotten to be such good helpers," Bobbi McCaughey says. "They all do their own laundry."