When the news came last November, Jim Baer could only shrug. An Iowa seamstress had given birth to the world's first surviving septuplets, not to mention a moral debate over multiple births. The arrival of the four boys and three girls was followed by a "Nightline" special, a Newsweek cover, and a dizzying parade of facts: Bobbi McCaughey, who had stood a greater chance of being struck by an asteroid than delivering seven live babies, could look forward to 15,000 diaper changes in the first year.

Twenty-five years ago, the numbers were different but the frenzy was much the same. Baer, a 1965 Engineering college graduate, had a front-row seat--though it was on the floor outside the delivery room. His wife had been in labor for eight hours and, tired of pacing the corridors of Highland Park (Illinois) Hospital, he had slumped against a wall and slid to the cold tile. From there, he watched glassy-eyed as the scene unfolded.

Lynn Baer had not been due to give birth for another two months, but nothing about this pregnancy was normal. Exhausted, Baer peered up at a flurry of activity. He recalls doctors running in and out, nurses behind them, and the same refrain: "There's another one! There's another one!" In those early days of fertility drugs, surprise was part of the package. "They told us we were having two," says Baer. "Maybe three." It turned out to be two plus three, as five baby Baers were born in under an hour.

Thanks to more aggressive fertility treatments and dramatic advances in prenatal care, multiple births are routine. An average of one set of surviving quadruplets is born each day in the U.S., along with dozens of quintuplets each year. There are two sets of living sextuplets and now the newborn septs.

But when the Baers were born on January 5, 1973, they were front-page news--the third surviving set of quintuplets in U.S. history. The babies ranged from one pound, eleven ounces to just over three pounds; the odds of all five surviving the first night were 10,000-to-one. "All I cared about originally," he says, "was that I had a healthy wife and healthy children."

But when he went home to rest, he began to realize what the family was in for. At 3:30 a.m., he opened the door to find a reporter for the Chicago Tribune offering $1,000 for pictures of the babies. Baer told him to get lost. But even without photos, the story dominated the next morning's headlines: "IT'S A BOY, BOY, GIRL, GIRL, GIRL!"

One paper included an article about the Dionne quintuplets, born in Canada in 1934. It detailed the sad tale of how the five identical girls became a sideshow--thousands of gawking visitors a day rushing to see the babies in a government-built complex known as Quintland. "When I read that article, plus the experience I'd had in the first twelve hours since the kids were born, I didn't want any part of it," says Baer. "That was when my paranoia began, and it never really changed."

From the beginning, he refused to let the press near the quints' hospital room. Still, the attention was overwhelming. After a fistfight with a photographer, Baer called his lawyer, who informed him that he and his family were now in the public domain. So, after three sleepless nights, Baer decided to hold a press conference.

It was a far cry from Kenny McCaughey's reaction, which consisted of a "Wow!," references to God, and a smile that fell between bliss and denial. His was a public display of wonder; Baer's was a plea for privacy, asking that the children grow up "unexploited by the happenstance of the unique timing of their birth." Then the offers rolled in. They would reach well into six figures, but Jim and Lynn decided never to accept a penny, though they could have used it. "My ability to plan long-range went out the window the day the kids were born," says Baer, who lives in a Chicago suburb and owns a software business. "You have to buy five of everything."

Equally daunting was making sure one set of quintuplets emerged as five individuals. It started with different names, then different clothes. "We never dressed the kids alike," says Baer. "The temptation was great because they were so cute, but it was like everything we were trying to avoid." In high school, between them, there were three tennis team co-captains, a golf star, a cheerleading captain, a synchronized swimmer, a student council president, and an all-state cellist. Now, at age twenty-five, they are no longer "the quints." They are Tommy, a claims specialist for an insurance adjuster; Elizabeth, a first-grade teacher; Doug, an ad executive; Leslie, studying for her PhD in clinical psychology; and Vicki, a social worker. "I believe," says Baer, "that I'm the first father of quintuplets to send all five to college."

-- Brad Herzog '90

Published in Cornell Alumni Magazine. Used by permission.