Sextuplets born in Virginia after parents' 17-year infertility struggle

— -- A couple who tried nearly two decades to conceive has welcomed a set of sextuplets in Richmond, Virginia.

Adeboye and Ajibola Taiwo tried for 17 years to have children. In January, they learned they were expecting six.

“I was excited,” said dad Adeboye Taiwo. “For the very first time we were expecting.”

The babies, three boys and three girls, range in weight from 1 pound, 10 ounces, to 2 pounds, 15 ounces, according to VCU Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia.

“We’re going through this extraordinary journey together with the family,” Ronald Ramus, M.D., director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at VCU Medical Center, said in the hospital's press release. “It’s not every day that parents bring home sextuplets. Mrs. Taiwo was eating, sleeping and breathing for seven. A lot of the support and encouragement we gave her to make it as far as she did was important, and one of the biggest contributions we made as a team.”

In 2015, there were close to 4 million live births in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only 24 of those births were quintuplets or other higher-order births.

“I hope for the smallest of my six children to grow up and say, ‘I was so small, and look at me now,’” said Ajibola Taiwo. “I want my kids [to] come back to VCU to study and learn to care for others with the same people who cared for me and my family.”

Ajibola Taiwo was discharged from the hospital May 18, but the sextuplets remain in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. All six babies are "doing well and continue to thrive" in the NICU, according to VCU.