Dilley sextuplets

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The Dilley sextuplets (Brenna Rose, Julian Emerson, Quinn Everett, Claire Diane, Ian Michael and Adrian Reed), of Decatur, Indiana, were the first surviving set of sextuplets in the United States. They were born on May 25, 1993 to Becki and Keith Dilley. All but one of the babies were able to go home after a little while; baby Julian had a congenital hernia, but was able to come home after an operation.

The parents, Becki and Keith Dilley, started out as best friends and co-workers at a Wendy's restaurant in Indiana. They married and were looking forward to having a family. The parents tried to conceive for a year without results. Determined to have a family, they consulted a doctor. Becki and Keith found out that they had little chance of having a baby. After five more difficult years trying, the couple heard of a powerful fertility drug called Pergonal. They had already tried many conception methods, and Pergonal was reported to have successful results, so they decided to try it. As a result they got sextuplets.

All ultrasounds showed five babies, and a crew hired to film the delivery shut off the camera after the fifth baby was born. The doctor reached in to retrieve the placenta and grabbed a foot instead, and said, "There's a sixth baby." Everyone initially thought she was kidding, but she wasn't, and the children themselves have said, "Adrian was hiding."

The teenagers are now 15 and are going to school at their local high school.

[edit] Further reading

Special Delivery: How We Are Raising America's Only Sextuplets...and Loving It, by Barbara M Dille, Becki Dilley, Sam Stall. Publisher: Random House, Date Published: 1995, ISBN 0-679-43706-1

Sixty Fingers, Sixty Toes: See How the Dilley Sextuplets Grow, by Becki Dilley, Keith Dilley, E. Anthony Valainis. Publisher: Walker & Company, Date Published: 1997, ISBN 0-8027-8614-6.