Birth is a Florida first: Five boys, one girl

Wesley Chapel mom and her sextuplets are all "doing well."

By LISA BUIE, Times Staff Writer
Published September 2, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG -- Ben Byler had just gotten home from visiting his pregnant wife Saturday night when the phone rang.

Get back to the hospital, the caller said. The sextuplets are on the way.

Byler dashed back out of his Wesley Chapel home. He got to Bayfront Medical Center and suited up in scrubs. At exactly 9 p.m., as he rubbed Karoline Byler's shoulder, the first of their six babies entered the world. Three minutes later, it was all over.

The five boys came first, and daughter MacKenzie Margaret was last.

"My adrenaline was just going 100 miles per hour," said Ben Byler, who was sporting six hospital ID bracelets.

Family members who were at Bayfront for the births of Florida's first sextuplets -- making them eligible for the record books -- included Karoline's parents, aunt and uncle, Ben's mother and stepfather, and big sister Zoe, 4. She was excited and saw her siblings go by on their way to nearby All Children's Hospital, Ben Byler said.

The babies were delivered by caesarean section, Bayfront spokeswoman Nancy Waite said.

"Mom and the six babies are doing well," Waite said.

The heaviest of the babies weighed about 3 pounds, Ben Byler, 30, said.

Karoline Byler, 29, was confined to Bayfront's antepartum unit last month in the hopes that several more weeks would pass before the babies were born.

She got pregnant after she underwent infertility treatments because of a polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that makes conception difficult.

Early in her pregnancy, doctors suggested selective reduction -- removing a couple of fetuses to improve the odds for the remaining ones -- but the Bylers decided against that.

"I felt if this was what was going to happen, this was what we were going to go with," Karoline Byler said in June. "People have done this before. It's rare, but it obviously can be done."

On Aug. 25, the family hosted what was billed as Tampa Bay's largest baby shower.

[Last modified September 2, 2007, 01:17:23]