Columbus Monthly / April 2011 / A miracle every day

 Email  Print

A miracle every day

When Mia McGhee gave birth to the first sextuplets born in Central Ohio last June, she and her husband didn’t know how they were going to make it. Months later, the family is thriving thanks to the generosity of others.

The door of a Colonial-style home in Gahanna swings open, revealing a bubbly Mia McGhee, wearing a bright purple shirt and denim skirt. The babies, she says, are just waking up.

The rest of this mid February day will be spent holding, feeding, burping and playing with six 8-month-old babies in the amazingly well-organized McGhee household. Yes, that’s six 8-month-old babies.

Last June 9, Mia McGhee, 30, gave birth to the first sextuplets born in Central Ohio. Since then, an element of celebrity has entered the lives of Mia and her husband of 10 years, Rozanno, 31, first-time parents who grew up in some of Columbus’s roughest neighborhoods and now are committed to creating the family life they never knew as children. They have gotten some criticism about giving birth to so many children, but they’ve ignored that. Their instantly large family, however, has attracted plenty of positive attention.

On this winter Wednesday, Mia fields calls from a producer of The Oprah Winfrey Show, confirming that the entire family—and an entourage of helpers—will fly to Chicago the following week for filming. (The group already had flown to Los Angeles in January to tape a show, Oprah’s All Stars, on the new OWN network, during which Mia and Ro met with Dr. Phil McGraw, Suze Orman and Dr. Mehmet Oz for advice.)

Celebrities haven’t been the only ones interested in aiding the McGhees. The couple has survived the past several months thanks to help—of time, money, supplies and even a house—from volunteers and Central Ohio business leaders. And plenty of prayers.

Rozanno Jr. is the oldest of the babies, often referred to as the alpha male of the group as he watches over his three brothers and two sisters. He was the heaviest at birth, weighing in at 2 pounds. His sisters Olivia and Madison are the chatty duo, often babbling baby talk to whomever will listen. Despite their pierced ears, they are easy to tell apart, as Olivia has a shock of hair at the top of her head. Isaac usually is the first to complain and always glad to have attention. Elijah, with his big, bright eyes, wants to be sure no one overlooks him, and Josiah, the smallest of the sextuplets, is quick to offer a smile to whomever is watching.

9:05 am: In the kitchen of the McGhee home, Ro’s mother, Charmyne Nixon, is finishing breakfast while the babies are napping upstairs. Mia is taking bites from a bowl of oatmeal. After explaining some of the publicity they already have dealt with, Mia says they have sought the advice of a Hollywood attorney because a variety of deals and inquiries have come their way since the babies were born, including a possible program on Oprah’s OWN network.

9:17 am: While Nixon, who is called Granma, shows up in the kitchen holding Ro Jr.—the others still are sleeping—the chatty Mia provides a synopsis of her pregnancy, a tale that will continue to unfold during sporadic conversations throughout the day.

“It freaked us all out,” Mia explains of the January 2010 day when a visit with her fertility doctor revealed seven heartbeats. The doctor told her, Ro and his mother—who was with them that day—to see a specialist for a selective abortion. They were warned that the babies could die in utero, or be blind, deaf or have any number of ailments.

Ro and Mia were in turmoil. Nixon tried to assure them that everyone would be OK. Once home, the McGhees went their separate ways. Ro was upstairs crying. Mia stayed in the living room, asking God what she should do. Just six months before, she had miscarried twins—a girl and a boy. The couple was depressed for weeks afterward, and it was Ro who urged his wife to consider trying another time.

9:33 am: Three babies are now downstairs. Mia and Ro continue talking while Granma comes down the steps with each one. Six little bowls of cereal have lids on them, individually prepared for each child and stacked on a table designed for daycare centers, featuring inset seats for its occupants.

As babies emerge on the scene, Mia continues the story of her conception. “I said, ‘I’m doing this for you,’ ” she recalls telling her husband. Mia, who suffers from a low estrogen level, and Ro had saved money from their jobs to purchase the fertility drug that her doctor recommended. (At the time, Mia had just started a new position at Chase Bank after working for three years at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Ro was the night supervisor for a carpet cleaning company.)

After the miscarriage, the doctor had prescribed a lower dosage. Mia was certain she carried only one fetus when a test revealed she was pregnant again. But their lives were turned upside down during that January doctor’s visit.

“I’m cursed,” Mia recalls thinking. “I can’t get this pregnancy thing right.”

A friend showed up at their home, worried that Mia had miscarried again. “Seven babies,” Mia told her, emphasizing the word babies like she does so many times. The friend urged their minister and his wife to visit. They told the McGhees this was a blessing.

Alone in the living room later that day, Mia fell to her knees and told God that it would be in his hands. “You know what, God?” she recalls saying. “I’m going to go ahead and trust you—I know you’ll make a way for all of this.”

Mia felt as if a huge weight was lifted.

Today, she admits, “My fear was, ‘How am I going to take care of all of them?’ ”

Her husband was scared. “I was doing the math,” says Ro.

10:20 am: Ro Jr., finished eating, is in a walker; Madison is yelling for attention. All the babies now are downstairs. Ro, feeding a second shift, is talking about meeting a fireman with triplets who had advised him that the babies needed definitive eating and sleeping times. On Facebook, Mia has met the parents of the first African-American sextuplets in the country, who also recommended a tight schedule. It’s the only way the McGhees would ever sleep.

On most days, the McGhee babies wake up around 6 am for their first bottles, go back to sleep until about 9 am, then eat cereal, have another bottle and are ready for a nap at 11:30 am. When they’re back up by 2 pm, they have playtime at their table, followed by some tummy time on the family room floor. At 5 pm, they receive an evening meal of baby food, followed by baths and the final bottle of the day. By 7:30 pm, they are tucked in for the night.

10:25 am: Ro is still amazed as he walks to a room over the garage, which is a small warehouse of diapers, shampoo, Wet Ones and other baby supplies. A group of professional organizers volunteered their time to set up shelving and categorize everything from clothing to equipment. Still, Ro needs to provide for his family. (Mia no longer works outside the home.) He left his job to start his own carpet cleaning business, McGhee Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning. In the garage, he shows the cargo van and equipment he purchased for his company.

11:30 am: The previous hour has been spent warming bottles and feeding and burping babies. It’s hard to imagine doing this every day for all six. Now it is naptime. The babies each are carried to their cribs, in three bedrooms on the second floor. There’s hardly a sound when the adults gather back in the kitchen.

11:45 am: While eating lunch, Mia talks about giving birth on a Thursday. On the following Sunday she was released from the Ohio State University Medical Center. When it comes to birthing battle stories, she is a sure winner. The evening after delivering, she walked to a wheelchair. “They told me if I wanted to see the babies, I had to walk,” she says.

She remembers daily ultrasounds that were started at 17 weeks of pregnancy, when she was in the hospital on full bed rest. During one ultrasound, Mia saw the babies lined up in her tummy and three of them were kneeling. She talks about a fetus, another daughter, who died in utero at 23 weeks. “Maybe God sees that we can handle six, not seven,” she remembers thinking. “We were expecting something to go wrong,” her husband interjects.

“God knew what I could handle,” adds Mia. “Six babies. I can’t believe they were in my belly.”

At around 26 weeks of pregnancy—about two and a half months premature—Mia was ready to deliver. Doctors warned Ro, who would be with her during the cesarean birth, that the babies’ lungs would not be developed enough to cry. But nearly all of them let out a yell as they came into the world.

After two months in the hospital, Olivia, breathing on her own, was the first baby to come home, in August. The others arrived sporadically for several weeks after that.

12:15 pm: Mia says that she’s registered to continue her education for adult learners this summer at Ohio Dominican University for a degree, still passionate about her longtime goal of becoming an attorney. “I want to get to law school at Capital University,” she says. “I thought I could do that with one or two babies.” (She also mentions later that she has registered a nonprofit organization with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office that she hopes one day will be used to help other parents of multiple births.)

Mia explains that she has lost two brothers. She was 12 when her 15-year-old brother was shot once in the head on the Fourth of July at the intersection of Cleveland and 17th avenues. The second brother died of hepatitis when he was 30 years old. He’d been in prison for selling drugs.

12:30 pm: “I need more business,” says Ro, who eventually wants an office and to hire more help. For now, he does the carpet cleaning and Mia handles the invoicing and other paperwork.

Then, Ro gets nostalgic as he talks about his own childhood. Nationwide Children’s Hospital once bought a piece of his art when he was a youngster. They paid him $250, he says.

As a child, Ro went to centers for the Boys & Girls Clubs in Columbus. “I broadened my horizons,” he says, after watching two brothers who hung out in the neighborhood, getting into trouble. His family lived in the Short North area, and he remembers the many years that his mother was a crack addict. (Later, his mother says that she has definite regrets about her 18-year addiction. After six months in an outpatient program at OSU’s Talbot Hall, she kicked the habit nine years ago.)

As he became a teenager, Ro figured out that teachers liked him better if he wore nicer clothes, brushed his teeth and washed his face. He says he learned how to look as if he had parents who cared. Today, his mother is at the table, listening. “I looked like my basic needs were met,” he says. “You have to be a certain way in society or you will not be accepted.”

12:45 pm: “What I care about is God,” says Mia. “This whole experience has taught me that man doesn’t have a say-so.”

Then Ro and Mia mention two strangers, Ira Sharfin, CEO of Continental Office Environments, and Lou Mitchell, president of First Financial Group, who have made significant donations of time and money to assist them. Sharfin and his wife helped them move from their Linden-area home to this four-bedroom house in Gahanna, by providing a lease-to-own option. In addition, the Sharfins and their friends put together the funding to buy an eight-passenger van for the McGhee family. Mitchell has given them plenty of support and a gift of money for the children.

They also talk about Abbott, the international healthcare company, sending them formula for the children, and the donations forwarded by IMPACT Community Action and St. Stephen’s Community House. Family and friends also gave them a shower.

“I’m blown away,” says Ro, “because you don’t realize how many people truly care.”

1 pm: The babies are crying upstairs. First, it’s Isaac, then the others get in on the act.

Granma and Ro carry up full baby bottles that come down empty a few minutes later, as they try to extend naptime a little longer.

1:20 pm: Granma is going up and down the steps, checking on various babies as they let out cries.

1:30 pm: Mia says that after the babies were born she was invited to a luncheon of successful black women. Sometimes she feels sad that if she hadn’t given birth to the sextuplets, she never would have had the chance to meet some of these people. “It’s like working hard is not enough,” she says.

1:35 pm: Naptime has ended. Josiah is awake, now in a swing in the family room.

1:45 pm: While Granma and Ro continue with their trips upstairs to bring babies downstairs, Mia talks about getting “kicked out” of her home at age 17. She had a job as a manager at a Pizza Hut, got an apartment, dropped out of school and pursued her GED. She already had met Ro at Linden-McKinley High School, another hardworking student who was optimistic about his future. He moved in with her and, soon after he graduated from high school, they were married before either turned 20.

1:55 pm: Mia explains that she organized volunteers to help them take the babies to church on three occasions, but she’s reconsidered that now. She was bothered when a stranger at church walked up to one volunteer and pulled a baby away.

2 pm: “You have to accept that the babies are celebrities now,” Granma says, leaning against the kitchen island. “I don’t see it as them being celebrities,” Mia says.

She talks of the joy she gets out of the children, saying it’s hard to remember the days before their birth. “I love to hear their giggles. This is just a new life. I don’t see it as being harder or a job . . . but if I slack, I’m the one who will suffer.”

She explains that sometimes they have to push volunteers out the door in the evenings so that she and Ro have some privacy before she showers and goes to bed. That’s usually at 9 or 10 pm.

2:30 pm: Five of the babies are situated in their table seats. Numerous rattles, trains, books and pop-and-spin toys are moved from the toy chest to the table. Granma pulls Ro Jr. out of his space to change his diaper. A sixth baby appears. There is a lot going on as babies grab their toys and sometimes each other.

3 pm: Mia, who had answered a phone call, returns to the room, announcing that the Oprah show called and invited them to fly to Chicago next week. She is negotiating the number of adults they can invite along to help. There are no high-fives or shouts. Josiah spits up a minimum of three times. Olivia poops. Elijah also poops.

3:20 pm: Babies are carried, one by one, to the family room for tummy time. This and other activities have been suggested by their pediatrician to assure that motor skills are properly developing. At the table, Mia and Ro work with babies to learn to grasp and hold their toys. Once they’re in the family room on their tummies, babies practice the movements that eventually lead to crawling. (The McGhee babies are still small for their ages and a few months behind on the usual developmental benchmarks, such as sitting and crawling.)

3:23 pm: Josiah is chewing on Olivia’s head. Isaac is scooting on his back, using the top of his head and his feet. Elijah is rocking on his knees, as if he’s ready to crawl. Madison’s legs are tucked underneath her, all movements nearly coordinated for takeoff. Olivia rolls over.

“I don’t know why I’m so tired,” says Ro, sinking back on the sofa.

3:57 pm: Granma is upstairs changing Josiah’s sleeper. Mia snuggles with Olivia, noticing that her daughter is still tired. Ro is holding Elijah for some father-and-son time.

4:09 pm: Back on the floor, Olivia has covered much ground as she rolls around. Now she’s kicking a brother. Elijah and Olivia are positioned into baby swings. Josiah is back. Ro Jr. starts giving head butts to one of his brothers. Ro picks up his namesake, and the baby begins to bounce as if he’s testing his legs to walk eventually.

4:30 pm: Mia hands off a baby to Ro so she can make him a cup of green tea. It’s not long before two babies are fast asleep on their father’s chest.

The Oprah producer calls again. Just as babies begin getting lined up for their evening meal at the table, Mia emerges from the front office area announcing a list of items they need for the show next week. Among them are baby photos of her and her husband and a note from the fertility doctor to confirm the medication that she took. She then begins fretting over the condition of her braided hair and which helpers to invite to Chicago.

Meanwhile, Granma is mixing small bowls of baby food—corn and sweet potatoes with a drop of chicken in each one. The babies will have mixed fruit, too.

5:45 pm: Dinnertime is well underway when the second volunteer of the day shows up. Somer Ervin, who attended elementary school with Mia and stops in every Wednesday evening, greets the babies by name. Three babies awaiting dinner in their swings acknowledge her with grins and stares.

6 pm: The McGhees and their helpers are on fast-forward now, carrying babies from the first floor to the second, placing each one in his or her own crib, in three separate rooms. Ro, tying on a yellow apron with a bit of lace at the top, is stationed in the bathroom. It’s bath time at the McGhee place and this is no small chore.

In the pink girls’ room, Mia preps Olivia, then positions herself in the hallway to coordinate who is on deck next. Somer, in a room painted blue and decorated with sea creatures, is undressing babies, then drying and redressing them as baths are done. Granma is doing the same in a room that is decorated with large alphabetical letters. (Mia explains that her husband created the designs in each of the three baby nurseries.)

6:13 pm: The second floor is in an uproar. Babies are crying, some just yelling out for attention. Bath time is still underway.

6:45 pm: Bottles have been warmed and brought to the bedrooms. Mia and Ro have devised a system of propping babies and bottles so they’re all drinking at one time. As they finish, Mia, Granma or Somer pick up babies and start burping them.

Mia is burping a baby in the pink room and lights are out. Elijah is having a fit in the blue room, as Somer completes her final dressing assignment. Granma is walking through the hall with Josiah as Ro takes off his yellow apron and heads downstairs. Mia and Granma continue burping babies and talking softly in the pink room.

7 pm: Mia appears downstairs. Now she needs to dash to her mother’s house to get baby pictures for the Oprah program. She already has called a hairdresser so that when two volunteers show up on Thursday, she can take the time to get her hair done.

Oh, she remembers, she needs to prepare laundry to be picked up the next day by friends who take the babies’ clothing twice a week to clean, fold and return to the house. She and Ro are talking about his cleaning assignments. He has one on Thursday and two Friday. And Oprah’s filming crew will be here Friday from 8:30 am until about 4 pm.

Ro grabs a Weight Watchers ice cream sandwich from the refrigerator. “You can’t believe how fast you can gain weight,” he says. He’s bothered that he has gained 75 pounds since the babies arrived. He’s hoping to get back to the 13-mile runs he did prior to their births. Mia, he says proudly, was up to four miles at the same time. But with their daily marathon of caring for six babies, that might not happen again real soon.

Postscript: Just six days later, dressed in a sports coat and tie onstage at the Oprah show, Ro tries hard to hold back tears. Mia looks at Oprah in disbelief. Winfrey has just announced a windfall: Walmart will give the couple $250,000 of in-store credits for merchandise—$50,000 a year for the next five years.

“I tried to be strong for my kids,” Ro later says backstage, looking around at the volunteers who made the trip. (The babies appeared on the show, too, in their six-passenger baby carriage.)

There’s more, too. Celine Dion, the mother of twins born in October, also is on the program. She’s brought back onstage as the McGhees learn that she’s arranged for them to use a penthouse suite at Caesars Palace and get tickets to one of her upcoming shows there for the honeymoon they never had.

On the flight to Columbus late that evening, the couple is still shell shocked. Oprah. Celine. The Walmart gift. Another miracle has just happened along this wild journey of the McGhee family.

Still, Mia and Ro stay focused on their babies, nestling them in the large stroller as they get off of the plane. In the Port Columbus terminal, the McGhee entourage pauses briefly and, within seconds, they draw a crowd. The click of cellphone cameras continue until they push forward, ready to return home and get back on schedule.

Sherry Beck Paprocki is a freelance writer and editor of Columbus Monthly Homes.