Pearland's Perkins sextuplets turn 1

PEARLAND, Texas – A Pearland woman gave birth to sextuplets at 10:26 a.m. on April 23, 2012 at Texas Children's Hospital - Pavillion for Women.  The three boys and three girls were born premature and weighed between 1 pound, 10 ounces and 2 pounds, 15 ounces and were delivered via C-section.

Lauren and David Perkins struggled with infertility for a year and a half.  The couple chronicled their progress on a public webpage and explained that they used intra-uterine insemination and ovulatory stimulating drugs to conceive. 

"There are only one set of sextuplets born a year in the U.S. It's a very, very rare circumstance," said Dr. William Gibbons, a reproductive endocrinologist, in an interview last April.

Andrew Noah, Benjamin Luke, Levi Thomas, Allison Kate, Caroline Grace and Leah Michelle, were born at 30 weeks gestation, 10 weeks early. Leah was the baby that required the most care — she was born with digestive problems that required two surgeries to help repair part of her bowel.

Now the babies are thriving. They celebrated their first birthdays at a party over the weekend with friends and family.