After being on bedrest for close to a month, Karoline Byler delivered Florida’s first set of sextuplets last night.
Ben, the new daddy, had just arrived home from visiting when he got the call that the babies were about to make their appearance.
He got to the hospital in time to scrub in and rub his wife’s belly. Three minutes later all 6 babies had been delivered.
The five boys came first, and daughter MacKenzie Margaret was last.
“My adrenaline was just going 100 miles per hour,” said Ben Byler, who was sporting six hospital ID bracelets.
Family members who were at Bayfront for the births of Florida’s first sextuplets — making them eligible for the record books — included Karoline’s parents, aunt and uncle, Ben’s mother and stepfather, and big sister Zoe, 4. She was excited and saw her siblings go by on their way to nearby All Children’s Hospital, Ben Byler said.
The babies were delivered by caesarean section, Bayfront spokeswoman Nancy Waite said.
“Mom and the six babies are doing well,” Waite said.
The heaviest of the babies weighed about 3 pounds, Ben Byler, 30, said.
Karoline Byler, 29, was confined to Bayfront’s antepartum unit last month in the hopes that several more weeks would pass before the babies were born.
She got pregnant after she underwent infertility treatments because of a polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that makes conception difficult.
Early in her pregnancy, doctors suggested selective reduction — removing a couple of fetuses to improve the odds for the remaining ones — but the Bylers decided against that.
“I felt if this was what was going to happen, this was what we were going to go with,” Karoline Byler said in June. “People have done this before. It’s rare, but it obviously can be done.”
Related Articles:
The Byler Sextuplets Get Extravagant Shower
Argentine Mom Expecting Septuplets
Masche 6 All Doing Well
Expectant Florida Mom Of sextuplets ‘Feeling Great’
Calgary Woman Delivers Identical Quadruplets
