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Des Moines delivers on multiple births
November 11, 1997
Web posted at: 3:57 p.m. EST (2057 GMT)From Correspondent Jeff Flock
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Young Dana Enderson is banging her feet as she sips from a drink in the kitchen while her mother helps sister Rachael get dressed. Her brother Phillip is getting dressed too, with help from big sister Moriah. And Andrew will not take a nap.
With all this going on, it is no wonder that Deanna Enderson, the mother of these 11-month-old quadruplets, is a little harried.
What does she think of the fact that Bobbi McCaughey, across town, is expecting septuplets soon?
"Oh, I feel sorry for her. I can just barely handle four," she says.
Enderson is not alone. Five sets of quadruplets have been born in the past year at the same Des Moines hospital, not far from the one where McCaughey's septuplets will soon be born.
It isn't clear why this Midwestern city has seen so many multiple births. Fertility drugs, long linked to multiple births, are suspected to be part of the equation. McCaughey, for example, was taking the fertility drug Metrodin when she conceived.
But it may also be, simply, that this is Iowa. In some other states, it is relatively common to reduce the number of artificially induced fetuses, giving the ones left a better chance. Here, more people may feel that such a practice is unacceptable.
Dr. Neil Mandsager of Mercy Medical Center personally delivered four of the five sets of quads. He knows four babies, much less seven, are a handful for everyone.
"Iowa may be a little more conservative," Mandsager said. "I know the women who came to me with quads had no interest in reducing."
Eleven months after the birth of their quads, the Enderson family is struggling to finish an addition that will double the size of their modest Redfield, Iowa, house.
"Seven people in a tiny two-bedroom house just doesn't quite cut it," father Paul Enderson observed.
Meanwhile, Deanna says the family is just taking it one day at a time, handling five times the feedings, changings, dressings, baths and loads of laundry that the parents of any single newborn would see.
For prospective mother McCaughey, who is hospitalized as she awaits the birth of her seven children, Enderson has some advice. "It takes patience. You just do what you can. It's impossible to get everything done," she said.
And, she added simply and wearily, "Good luck. You will need it."
Related story:
- Woman expecting 7 babies - Oct. 30, 1997
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