Dilleys Tackle Their Teens

Nov. 28, 2007 — -- Thirty thousand bottles and 20,000 diapers have passed since the country's first surviving sextuplets entered the world. Now, 14 years later, the Dilleys children are high school freshmen in Indianapolis and tackling many of the issues familiar to teenagers.

From birth, "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer has followed the lives of Adrian, Claire, Quinn, Ian, Brenna and Julian.

Parents Keith and Becki Dilley, who had tried for years to get pregnant before achieving success with aid of fertility drugs, have watched as their six children have transformed into distinct individuals.

Now the parents who once dealt with a dozen arms and 60 tiny little fingers that got into everything are today helping their children learn to shave and put on makeup.

Becki said she has no regrets about having six kids at one time. The trouble now is they are all growing up at once.

"I like having them all at once," Becki said. "The only thing is they're growing up so quickly. So, you kind of just feel like there's this little clock ticking down all the time."

Their once bustling home, which was full of noises that echoed down the hallways, is much quieter today. Becki and Keith said it feels empty sometimes.

"Keith and I find ourselves alone a lot," Becki said. "We come home, it's like, 'Where is everybody?' And I say, 'Well, they're not expected home till 11:30 or so. 'You mean we're like by ourselves?'"

Keith said he and his wife question what they should do in their empty home. But the couple can't always rest or have free time.

In fact, Keith said the exhaustion that accompanied the job when the Dilleys were infants and toddlers hasn't gone. It's only changed. Instead of changing diapers and packing the kids into the minivan, today Becki and Keith act more like a weekend taxi service for their children, shuttling them to wherever they need to go.

"It's changed," Keith said.

It's a different life now for the couple who raised their children without the help of a nanny or day care and who were strapped for money they couldn't afford a newspaper or a dinner out. Becki and Keith would often collapse at the end of their exhaustive days.

Now their worries are of a different sort. For one, they wonder how to prepare to send their sextuplets to college.

"[We] asked their guidance counselors and we're planning out kind of where they're going to go to college and what classes they need to take. And it just seems like we're on the down hill side of this," Becki said.

The children no longer require coddling and have defined their distinctive personalities.

In fact, Adrian, who was the sixth and surprise baby, still has the same fiery streak he did as a youngster. His siblings voted him mostly likely to get into trouble, a trait that showcased itself when he chopped off his hair just before a school photo shoot in elementary school.

According to his siblings, Adrian also is the one most likely to play a practical a joke on the Dilley household.

Julian, the most dramatic of the Dilley six, has changed from the toddler literally crying for attention into a teenager who likes wearing black and enjoys heavy metal music. Brenna, known as the nurturer of the group, has developed her angelic singing voice.

The once shy child didn't hesitate to sing "Silent Night" for Sawyer and siblings in "GMA's" Times Square studios.

Today poet and dancer Ian has ascended to the top of his class academically and sister Claire, who has a bossy side, can still be stern.

Even Quinn, who asked Sawyer to marry him when he was a child, has grown up. Now he has a girlfriend and Sawyer joked about how disappointed she was.

"I just can't believe you're going back on that commitment," Sawyer said to many Dilley chuckles.

The group is a close-knit clan. Their lockers are lined up next to one another in school.

"I like to be [a] sextuplet" kid, Adrian said. "If you get messed with, you got five people to back you up."

"You have someone there for you and they always help," Brenna added.