CHARLES ZEWE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We didn't really know exactly how many births it had been at first. We knew that it had been a multiple birth at the Children's Hospital down in Houston, but it was some time before we actually knew that these were eight tiny infants, born way premature, born as a result of the use by the mother of fertility drugs. The parents were not in the best of financial situations, and here were these eight children going into a struggling family, struggling in more ways than just financially. The community in Houston, the African-American community particularly, rallied around the Chukwus, and have helped them out financially and emotionally, and supported them. So it has ended up being a happy story. But in the early days after their birth, it was a real question about whether they would even survive. The Chukwu octuplet story is one that is a testament to what medical science today can do. Now one of them died, of the seven octuplets, they can thank their lives to the fact that medical science and the treatment of premature infants has advanced as much as it has. As far as we know, the children are doing well. They continue to grow and their births and their development are real miracles, in terms of what medical science can do.
CNN 20: First of Octuplets is Born, December 8, 1998