Rago ? Danielle, Ethan, Grant, Jaycie, Melissa and Sean Headrick took a break from their daily routine Friday to snuggle together for a photo.

A picture of health and contentment, the sextuplets born April 9 to Sondra and Eldon Headrick shared a quilt spread out on the living-room floor of their home.

Sondra Headrick rests as she feeds Melissa Sue, one of her 4-month-old sextuplet babies. The infants are all at home in Rago and healthy.

“It’s definitely a miracle,” Sondra Headrick said. “I know modern medicine had a lot to do with it. But I know God gave the doctors the knowledge, and I know He provides.”

But along with the miracle sustaining a successful seven-month pregnancy, delivering six healthy babies and now having them all at home there are days, she said.

Like Wednesday.

The nursery, with its three baby beds, needed cleaning; crib sheets had to be laundered and beds remade; baby clothes one group purchased at a garage sale in Haysville and another donated required washing and sorting.

The babies’ older sister, Aubrianna, 4, always a helper taking bottles to the sink and putting diapers in the trash, was “a pill.”

And the babies who together require 70 to 100 diapers and consume more than five quarts of formula daily for one reason or another all needed extra attention.

“Sometimes I think God’s playing a joke on me,” Sondra concluded, with a quiet smile.

Throughout the photo session, the babies, who resemble one another physically, demonstrated their individual personalities.

At the head of the lineup, Ethan, deep in slumber, with a tummy full of milk and wearing a dry diaper, snoozed soundly.

Melissa, dressed for the day in pink, waved both arms in the air and showed off her newly discovered hands, each clenched into dainty fists.

Wide-eyed and grinning, Grant hammed it up for the photographer. Sean, like his brother, kept his eyes on the camera.

Jaycie moved her head from side to side, eyes wide open, while Danielle, the sometimes noisy one, pondered the situation and watched closely.

Sounding board

In the beginning, Sondra wanted to care for the babies all on her own.

Another mother of sextuplets, Becki Dilley, who lives in Indiana and whose children are now 9, told Sondra that she and her husband did it on their own. The two mothers have formed a friendship, and Becki remains a sounding board of experienced advice.

But the going-it-alone ended while the babies were still in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Wichita’s Via Christi Regional Medical Center, St. Joseph Campus.

“‘Our family doctor had a little talk with the doctors at the hospital,” Sondra said. “They ganged up on me. They know I’m an independent person.”

An army of volunteers too large to count, on a schedule arranged by a family member, come day and night to help care for the infants and carry in meals.

Sondra and Kara Stucky, a Bethel College student, head the day crew. Janet Headrick, Eldon’s mother, a registered nurse, takes night duty along with other family members and volunteers.

Their goal is to have the six become “quiet and peaceful” sleeping babies at night, Janet Headrick said.

Meals continue to be carried in from residents of Kingman, Norwich, Cheney, Wichita and other area towns.

Their families have given unceasing help and support including Eldon’s sister, who delivered a baby in December. She nurses her own infant, then pumps and freezes 38 ounces more of mother’s milk each day, which is mixed with the sextuplets’ formula.

On schedule

The babies are on a closely kept schedule. Records are kept on daily charts.

“You have to keep multiples on a schedule,” Sondra said. “It only makes sense. Can you imagine if they were eating on demand?”

Their 24-hour routine starts with 5 to 5:30 a.m. daily baths and includes bottles every four to six hours, lots of diapering, naps, playing, some crying and a 9 p.m. bedtime.

Baths are given on a conveyer-style “system.”

Undress. Into the tub that fits in the kitchen sink. Pass the baby on for lotion and dressing, and then feeding.

The babies remain in the living room all day, in swings, on the floor or in jumpers. Nursery cribs are reserved for nighttime, when they sleep for five to six hours. After the first one wakes, the rest are awakened and fed, them put back to bed immediately.

On Sundays when they’re planning to attend church, it takes about 2 1/2 hours to prepare. Along with the babies’ morning routine, Eldon, Sondra and Aubrianna must get dressed, too.

They’ve visited several area churches for two reasons, Sondra said. One, they’re looking for a church home.

And the second?

“We want people to see the babies, know they’re healthy, that their prayers worked and that we’re thankful God creates miracles,” Sondra said.

Challenges abound

Having round-the-clock volunteers in their home means they’ve lost their privacy, but they “deal with that,” Sondra said.

They’ve made room in their hearts for the babies, but making room in their modular home is a challenge.

The small nursery contains three cribs, two babies to a bed. It will eventually make room for one more, and two more cribs will go in Aubrianna’s room. The dining table and chairs will soon be replaced by six high chairs, and meals will be served at the kitchen bar.

Other challenges: sleep deprivation and finances.

Sondra often gets only four to six hours of sleep at night, on weekends. Eldon, a “wonderful” dad, helps, but he also wants relaxation time from his job in Wichita.

They’ve set aside one night a month for a date, and each takes another night alone for a night out. Sondra gets out in the daytime for occasional trips to town. They dedicate Sunday afternoons to family time alone.

They’ve established an educational trust and a fund for a larger home with any money gifts they receive. Everything else must come from Eldon’s paycheck, Sondra said.

Ready for ‘PrimeTime’

While they turned down national media requests during Sondra’s pregnancy and up until now, after closely monitoring all the networks they have agreed to tell their story on “PrimeTime Live” with Diane Sawyer this fall.

“We like her style,” Sondra said.

A part of their story includes the pregnancy with Aubrianna through assistance from a fertility clinic and their wish to have another child.

Six weeks into a second pregnancy, a doctor detected six heartbeats. They had two weeks to make a fateful decision: whether to abort any of the babies.

During those two weeks, Eldon listened to his head and his heart, not knowing how they would do it but knowing they could.

Sondra dreamed of having her six “healthy, strong and beautiful” babies at home.

They chose to keep all six.

Sondra checked into the hospital for several months before delivery. There, she and her doctors focused on having six healthy babies. At seven months, the babies, weighing between two and three pounds each, were delivered by Caesarean section. Within weeks, they were strong enough to go home.

Today their weights are between nine and 11 pounds, and they’ve reached the “fun stage,” their mother said.

They’re all smiling and cooing. They follow faces and voices with their eyes and have discovered their hands and feet.

The next years will be a challenge, Sondra said.

“Our reward will be at the end,” she concluded. “When they’re all adults with families of their own.”