Now That’s Some Big News
When Bobby went for her six weeks scan after she found out that she was pregnant, the doctors couldn’t quite believe what they found in her womb. There were not one, not two, but seven living embryos that were growing at a steady pace. Each of the fetuses visible on the sonogram had its tiny sac of amniotic fluid. Dr. Hauser was stunned, and she later told the press that she couldn’t wrap her mind around it for a reasonable length of time. Bobbi and Kenny were just as surprised as the doctors and had to take some time to wrap their head around the news.
DES MOINES, IA – NOVEMBER 20: Iowa Methodist Medical Center senior vice president, Sharon Simmons, (L), and fertility specialist, Katherine Hauser, leave a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, after Hauser answered questions regarding her treatment of Bobbi McCaughey, mother of septuplets.
This was one of the first cases of this kind in the history of fertility treatments, primarily because it was not the result of multiple embryos planted into Bobbi’s womb via IVF. According to an article published in The Hastings Center Report, “Medical Miracle or Medical Mischief? The Saga of the McCaughey Septuplets,” this pregnancy should not have happened.
The same article states that good medical practice regarding fertility treatments mandates that the number of eggs a woman produces should be closely monitored and if the number of eggs released is too high, and the risk of multiple pregnancies is high, the woman should refrain from sexual activity and try again at a later date. For reasons that are unknown, this did not happen in the case of Bobbi McCaughey, hence her pregnancy with seven babies.