Mary's Humble Response

History has recorded some amazing births. Born near a small town in Ontario, Canada, on May 28, 1934, the Dionne sisters became the first known set of quintuplets to survive infancy. For the first decade of their lives they were Canada's biggest tourist attraction—bigger even than Niagara Falls—generating several hundred million dollars in tourist revenue. January 11, 1974, saw the birth of the Rosenkowitz sextuplets, the first recorded set of sextuplets to have survived to adulthood, in Cape Town, South Africa. The seven children born to Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey of Des Moines, Iowa, on November 19, 1997, are the first set of septuplets to survive infancy. Another notable birth involved only one child. On July 25, 1978, Louise Brown was born in Oldham, England.What was noteworthy about her, however, was not her birth, but the manner of her conception: she was the world's first “test-tube baby,” conceived by means of in vitro fertilization.And in 2008 a single woman gave birth to octuplets by means of in vitro fertilization. All are currently alive. . . .