I’m sure you’ve all heard of the McCaughey’s, the couple from Carlisle, Iowa, who are expecting septuplets any day now.

So far, I have only heard good things about the McCaughey’s. I am sure they will love their babies and do the best they can to raise them.

The general reaction to the McCaughey’s pregnancy seems to be positive. It is a blessing, some say. A mixed blessing, to be sure.

I, for one, do not feel any awe about the pregnancy. In fact, I feel a bit of trepidation regarding the whole situation.

I admire the McCaughey’s and their community for managing to keep the press at bay. As a result of their insistence on privacy, I haven’t heard anything about how the McCaughey’s managed to conceive septuplets, but I’m speculating that some kind of fertility drug was involved.

I suppose if you are using fertility drugs, you probably truly want a child. However, are you expecting seven children? I doubt if the McCaughey’s were dreaming of babies in multiples of three. Can the average parents adequately care for septuplets?

I can’t even imagine having seven kids total, let alone seven babies at once.

Think of the time and effort involved in caring for seven babies. How many mounds of poopy diapers to be changed, bottles to be heated and burpings to be administered would there be in a day?

What is the likelihood that all seven would be asleep at the same time? And if they did fall asleep, what would you do when they all woke up screaming at two in the morning?

That’s just while they’re immobile. The problem would be compounded when they learned to crawl and walk.

It sounds like a full-time, three-person job to me. Deanna Enderson, an Iowan who is a mother of quadruplets, could probably testify to the magnitude of the job.

“You accept that there will never again be any form of organization in your life,” Enderson said in an article in the Oct. 31 issue of the Des Moines Register.

I read in Sunday’s Register that the cost of the McCaughey delivery alone will be somewhere around $500,000. Luckily for the McCaughey’s, their health insurance will pay most of that cost.

However, insurance won’t pay for formula, diapers, clothes, toys, a larger house, a van or college education for the septuplets after they leave the hospital.

The McCaughey’s 21-month-old daughter will also be greatly affected by the advent of septuplets. Older children have it rough in normal circumstances, or so I’m told. Can you imagine having to compete with seven babies for attention?

Although the McCaughey septuplets will probably be well cared for, there is a reason why humans usually have only one baby at a time.

I’m not saying people who are experiencing fertility problems shouldn’t have a chance to have children. I just don’t think we have addressed all the potential problems fertility drugs bring to our world.

If this delivery is successful, having septuplets will probably become a more common occurrence in the future. Medical doctors, from experience with the McCaughey case, will be better able to handle septuplet pregnancies.

The earth’s population is going to double in no time. Countries like China have already imposed restrictions on the number of children each family should have. Someday soon, U.S. citizens are going to have to face up to the problem of space, just like the rest of the world.

The McCaughey septuplets are perhaps a miracle, but they should also be a warning to us all.

Technology can be dangerous, and we need to treat it that way until we can identify and be responsible for the consequences.

---

Catherine Conover is a junior in liberal studies from Mapleton.