Almost half of all multiple pregnancies end in a miscarriage. Doctors that specialize in difficult pregnancies observed the pregnancy. Right until the very late stages, they were convinced that something was about to go wrong.
But nothing went wrong. The future mother felt great despite the fact that her belly alone weighed 15 lbs. The labor took place in a medical center in Iowa. There were 40 experts in the room: primatologists, neonatologists, breathing therapists, nurses, and anesthetists.
The children were born 9 weeks before the due date but all of them survived: 4 boys and 3 girls. Bobbi had a C-section and the children remained in the hospital for about 2 months. Bobbi’s sister put her college education on hold to help the Kaplan family raise their children.
After the tired and shocked mother and her children were sent home, she had a huge load of work. Every day, the children needed 42 bottles of food and 52 diapers.
Bobbi said that in the beginning relatives helped her a lot. There was always someone she could rely on. Not everyone supported the couple: for every 10 good letters, there was at least one where someone judged the family, and accused them of exploiting the children and wasting the resources of the world on just one huge family.