. And Babies Make 10! The heartwarming story of Kenneth and Bobbi McCaughey.  Reprinted from the February, 1998 issue of Melaleuca Country Magazine.

In the first part of 1997, Kenneth and Bobbi McCaughey, of Carlisle, Iowa, discovered they were expecting septuplets. "It took a couple of weeks to get over the shock!" Bobbi says. The McCaugheys' good friend Ginny Brown was one of the first people they told. Ginny, the wife of the McCaugheys' pastor, is also a Marketing Executive with Melaleuca.

Ginny joined the McCaugheys in their excitement, but they were also very aware of the fact that never before had seven healthy babies been born at once to the same mother. Getting all the right nutrition is an enormous concern. Ginny was convinced it would be beneficial for Bobbi to use Melaleuca and Vitality for Life products. "She came over one evening and went through everything," Bobbi says. "She explained it all and asked us if we thought we'd be interested in taking the vitamins. We said we would, and she said, 'Good! I have some right here!'"

But something as precious and delicate as a pregnancy requires much more than listening to a friend's well-intended suggestion. Because of the seriousness and high-risk nature of Bobbi's pregnancy, the McCaugheys - with all the medical attention and expertise at their disposal - went through all the right channels to make sure they were doing what was best for Bobbi and the babies.

"Ginny got right to work getting information together on the different nutrients," reports Bobbi. "She gave us a pamphlet on each one of the three products [Mela-Cal^®, Mel-Vita^®; and ProVex-Plus^TM], and she gave us a bottle of each one, with the ingredients and the percentages. We took them in to the doctors, and they compared them with the prenatal vitamins that they had previously prescribed for me. They said that they would be fine for me to take." Because the Vitality Pak was never designed as a prenatal vitamin, Bobbi's doctors suggested she take some additional iron. (Note: With Bobbi McCaugheys' inspirational success story, Melaleuca developed an enhanced prenatal vitamin supplement shortly after this article was released.) 

Bobbi and her doctors recognized the value of Melaleuca's fructose compounding: "We thought that it would be a great help during the pregnancy, and that it would be much more usable - as far as being absorbed by my body - than a regular prenatal vitamin would be."

Concerns about nutrition are part of any pregnancy; when there are seven babies on the way, that concern only multiplies. "I was supposed to eat 4,000 calories a day," Bobbi says, "but I never ate that. [The doctors] said I needed to eat something every 40 minutes, and I just couldn't!"

Bobbi McCaughey, her 2-yr old daughter, Mikayla, and 2-month old son Kenny, the first of the septuplets to come home

So how to deliver what the body needs - and under such trying circumstances? "We really needed to have something that had a lot of the nutrition that we needed - especially the calcium and zinc," Bobbi recalls. "For the first five months [of the pregnancy] I could hardly eat anything, I was just so sick all the time.

"And then once I got to the hospital I could eat a little bit more - but then I had hospital food, so I didn't WANT to eat any more!" laughs Bobbi. "So it was good to have something that was really able to boost the vitamins and minerals that I couldn't get from food."

The medical team working with Bobbi was concerned about stress and potential complications to her body and to the babies, so they decided Bobbi needed to be in bed - for the last five months of the pregnancy. Being bedridden for even one month presents considerable health risks; staying in bed for five months introduces other serious risks, like deep venous thrombosis (blood-clotting, generally in the legs), muscle weakness and loss of bone mass. "It's common in multiple-birth pregnancies for the blood pressure to skyrocket, so the doctors were a little concerned about it," Bobbi says. "They told me to take three Mel-Vita and three Mela-Cal tablets each day, and we never had any problems with high blood pressure." Asked how she felt during the pregnancy, Bobbi answers, "I felt really good. It wasn't until probably about the last week and a half that I felt really terrible - by that time contractions had started and I was on other medications to stop them."

Ginny was sensitive to the McCaugheys' wishes of keeping the information quiet for as long as they could, but she knew they would be hard-pressed to be able to pay for the vitamins in those quantities. So Ginny called Melaleuca to see if the company could do anything to help. She spoke with Tish Poling in the president's office, and Tish set about taking care of what Bobbi and the babies would need from Melaleuca.

The McCaugheys prepare to come home.

Recalling the first time he told someone about Bobbi and her association with Melaleuca, President and CEO Frank VanderSloot says: "I was talking with a small group of about 20 people, and I said, 'You know Bobbi McCaughey, who just delivered seven babies?' People nodded their heads, so I continued, 'Well, she was on the Vitality Pak and ProVex-Plus!'

"All of a sudden," Frank continues, "from the back of the room a woman screamed, 'OH MY GOSH!!!'

"It seems she was a new customer, and she'd just started taking the Vitality Pak herself - she was concerned that somehow that was what caused the seven babies!" Frank reassured her that Bobbi did not start taking the vitamins until after she learned she was expecting the seven babies; that the multiple pregnancy was a result of her being on a fertility medication. "From now on I'll be really careful with how I tell the story - I don't like to scare people like that!"

Frank continues, "We're really pleased that the McCaugheys decided to use our vitamins, and that the result has been so great. Our hopes and prayers are with them as they prepare for the wonderful experiences ahead."

Bobbi and Kenneth recognize the blessing it is to have had each other to lean on during the long road to delivery, and that their relationship is the foundation for their family's future. "The partnership and teamwork with Kenny is just a necessity - I can't imagine it being any different," Bobbi says. "At this point we've just come to depend on each other so much. Now we have to share everything. I think we talk a lot more and communicate better about our feelings and what's going on inside."

And how do you go about naming seven babies? When just one is on the way, Mom and Dad usually list a few of their own personal favorites and then settle in for a little good-natured discussion on which names to use. For the McCaugheys, the affair was considerably different: "It's a little easier when you have a bunch to choose from . there's no argument about which one you're going to use!" Bobbi says. That's because the McCaugheys got to use 14 of their favorite names at once. Joining big sister Mikayla, who is 2 years old, are seven new brothers and sisters: Kenneth Robert, Alexis May, Natalie Sue, Kelsey Ann, Brandon James, Nathaniel Roy and Joel Steven. Those seven sweet babies arrived November 19, 1997, healthier than any other septuplets ever born before. One of the medical staff attending Bobbi, Dr. Paula Mahone, says, "All the babies are so well-grown, so well-developed . it just strikes me as a miracle."

Ask Bobbi for a report on the kids, and she fairly beams: "The babies are all doing great! They're taking food on their own, breathing room air on their own, doing wonderfully!" At press time, first-one-home Kenneth Jr. had just been joined by brothers Joel and Brandon, and the other four were, according to Bobbi, "getting close to coming home - there's just a couple more things that they have to do."

All 10 McCaugheys are off to a great start on a wonderful family journey. And across North America and around the world, people are uniting in their hopes and prayers for the continued safety and development of these seven precious, miraculous babies.

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