A Virginia hospital says its staff has successfully delivered sextuplets and the three boys and three girls are thriving.
For 17 years, Ajibola and Adeboye Taiwo tried to have a child but had no luck.
Ajibola Taiwo gave birth to sextuplets this month at a Richmond hospital, and doctors said the three boys and three girls, along with their mother, are doing well.
VCU Medical Center in Richmond announced the births in a statement Wednesday, saying they were the first sextuplets delivered at the hospital. The babies were born May 11 to parents who had tried to conceive for 17 years.
The statement says a 40-person team was involved and the delivery required hours of planning. Ajibola Taiwo, a native of Nigeria, gave birth via cesarean section.
The babies ranged from 1 pound, 10 ounces, to 2 pounds, 15 ounces.
Sextuplets are quite rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the nearly 4 million live births in the U.S. in 2015, only 24 were quintuplets or other higher-order births.
The couple, natives of western Nigeria, had tried to conceive a child for nearly two decades. They were described as being “overcome with joy when they saw four heartbeats” at their first ultrasound in November, officials said.
But no one realized until January during another doctor’s appointment that the couple would be having two more.
“I was excited,” Adeboye said in a statement from the hospital. “For the first time, we were expecting.”
Hospital officials said that for privacy reasons they would not release where the couple live.
