We have chronicled their lives since birth. 
 
 Now the most famous septuplets in the world are on to the next phase in their lives. 
 
 The McCaughey septuplets -- Alexis, Brandon, Joel, Kelsey, Kenny, Natalie and Nathan -- graduated from Carlisle High School Sunday afternoon. 
 
 The septuplets will go on their separate paths, including the military, the work force and college. 
 
 
 
 Two of the seven siblings plan to enroll at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Missouri, where their parents were told they would receive a free education. ||||| If all the children survive, it would be the first time that has happened. In September, a Saudi Arabian woman became the first to deliver seven live babies, surprising her doctors. , who thought she was carrying only five. But those babies were born three months premature and one month after birth, three of them died. 
 
 The closest an American woman has come to having septuplets was in 1985, when seven babies were born to Patricia and Samuel Frustaci of Orange, Calif. But one of the infants was stillborn, three died within 19 days, and the other three had medical and developmental problems. 
 
 For months, the news that Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey were expecting seven children was kept secret by neighbors in Carlisle, an old grain and railroad town just outside of Des Moines. But word of the septuplets began leaking out about two weeks after Mrs. McCaughey (pronounced McCoy) entered the hospital on Oct. 15. 
 
 Since then, the pregnancy has captured worldwide attention as both a symbol of the ultimate scientific miracle and a cautionary example of the unwanted consequences of fertility treatments. 
 
 Mrs. McCaughey had taken Pergonal, one of several fertility drugs being taken by an increasing number of couples trying to conceive. 
 
 Many doctors and medical ethicists had expressed concern that a successful pregnancy might lead people to believe that multiple pregnancies were desirable and safe. Some experts stressed that more needed to be done to avoid the multiple pregnancies that can occur with fertility treatments. 
 
 Today, Mrs. McCaughey's father, Robert Hepworth, issued a statement saying, ''I would ask that all believers across the world join us in praying for Bobbi and the babies, that their health would continue and only improve.'' 
 
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 It was not determined whether any of the infants are identical, but doctors said that not all the babies were. 
 
 ''All the babies are so well-grown, so well-developed,'' said Dr. Mahone, a perinatologist who helped perform the delivery. ''As we delivered each baby and saw the size of the babies and how vigorous they were, we were very, very happy.'' 
 
 Dr. Mahone said the first baby -- also the heaviest -- was nicknamed Hercules because he ''held all the others up'' in a pyramid formation in the womb. 
 
 Mrs. McCaughey had been taking the fertility drug because the couple had trouble conceiving their first child, Mikayla, who was born nearly two years ago. 
 
 The McCaugheys were told early in the pregnancy that aborting some of the fetuses, or selective reduction, would increase the chance of survival for the others. But they said their religious beliefs would not allow any abortion. 
 
 ''God gave us those kids,'' Mr. McCaughey, 27, a billing clerk at an auto dealership, said last month. ''He wants us to raise them.'' 
 
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 Ethicists said the case of the McCaughey septuplets raised several of medicine's hardest questions. 
 
 First, is it appropriate to use technology to create life? Some, including Pope John Paul II, have taken a moral stand against fertility drugs, particularly because multiple fetuses often result, and many are likely to be stillborn or to die soon after birth. 
 
 Others question the ethics on the basis of resource allocation: should society spend so much money so one family can have a child? 
 
 Even tougher are the questions raised by a conundrum of multiple births. If some of the fetuses are not aborted, all could die or could be born so small that they might not survive. So is it appropriate to use technology to end life, especially life created by technology? 
 
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 ''Some people see a duty not to kill,'' said Jennifer A. McCrickerd, an assistant professor of philosophy who teaches biomedical ethics at Drake University in Des Moines. ''Others see a duty to save as many as you can.'' 
 
 All has turned out well, so far, for the McCaugheys. They bet correctly. 
 
 ''But what would people have thought if these children had been stillborn?'' Professor McCrickerd asked. ''Would they have characterized this couple as selfish parents?'' 
 
 Doctors let the pregnancy continue as long as possible. Mrs. McCaughey was in her 31st week, at least three weeks past the point that doctors consider fetuses likely to live if born prematurely. She had been confined to a bed since the ninth week, moving as little as possible so as not to induce contractions, and had been hospitalized for a month. Doctors decided on Tuesday night to deliver, as she was experiencing contractions and did not want any more drug therapy. ''She had had it, so we delivered,'' said Dr. Karen Drake, another of the attending doctors. 
 
 The children were named before the birth: Kenneth Robert, 3 pounds, 4 ounces; Alexis May, 2 pounds, 11 ounces; Natalie Sue, 2 pounds, 10 ounces; Kelsey Ann, 2 pounds, 5 ounces; Brandon James, 3 pounds, 3 ounces; Nathanial Roy, 2 pounds, 14 ounces; and Joel Steven, 2 pounds, 15 ounces. 
 
 ''I'm probably one of the proudest grandfathers in this country at this moment,'' said Mrs. McCaughey's father, Bob Hepworth, after whom the largest baby was named. 
 
 The births touched off an extraordinary outpouring of donations. Under the orchestratration of Iowa's Governor, Terry Branstad, businesses in the state have agreed to give the McCaugheys a plot of land with a new house on it big enough for the suddenly expanded family, furniture and appliances to put in it, a new car and a lifetime supply of Pampers diapers that could number 32,200 disposables. 
 
 In Carlisle, many of the 3,200 residents celebrated the births and planned fund-raisers for the family. 
 
 ''I wanted to tell someone, but I didn't,'' said Lavern Thompson, the McCaugheys' next-door neighbor. ''Everyone in town is running around having a good old time. It's quite an event.'' 
 
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 The McCaughey pregnancy is one of an increasing number of multiple births in this country, prompted by aggressive fertility treatments and also by improvements in prenatal and neonatal medical care. 
 
 Fertility drugs induce a woman to produce more than the usual one egg per cycle, increasing the chances that one of the eggs will be fertilized, but also increasing the risk of a multiple pregnancy. According to the Society for Reproductive Medicine, in 1995, more than 2.7. million women took fertility drugs, up from about one million women in 1988. 
 
 The number of multiple births has also accelerated, quadrupling over the last 25 years. In 1995, the last year for which statistics are available, there were 4,973 children born in sets of three or more. Most of those were triplets, but quadruplets and quintuplets are also becoming more common. 
 
 Doctors say that the more fetuses a woman carries, the greater the risk to the health of each one. All these babies are likely to be born premature, and problems can include cerebral palsy, brain damage, blindness, mental retardation or developmental problems with speech and motor skills. The economic costs are great too, not all of them covered by insurance. By some estimates, the McCaughey pregnancy will end up costing close to a million dollars. 
 
 Many say that fertility specialists can help forestall multiple births, either by encouraging women to ''selectively reduce'' the number of fetuses or by stopping the fertility drugs in mid-course once it becomes apparent that there is a multiple pregnancy. Some ethicists are in favor of stricter rules governing reproductive medicine. But some fertility doctors say they already take these steps on their own.
– Alexis, Brandon, Joel, Kelsey, Kenny Jr., Natalie, and Nathan have graduated from high school, NPR reports. If their first names don't ring a bell, perhaps their last name will: They're the McCaughey kids, the world's first known set of surviving septuplets, and they accepted their diplomas from Carlisle High School on Sunday, per the Des Moines Register. The septuplets made international headlines when they were born on Nov. 19, 1997, not only because of their number, but because their mom, Bobbi, had taken fertility drugs to help conceive and then refused to abort any of the fetuses to help boost survival chances for the others. "God gave us those kids," dad Kenny McCaughey said at the time, per the New York Times. "He wants us to raise them." The siblings, who also have a 20-year-old sister, Mikayla, all plan to head in different directions, with some attending college, some joining the military, and others going straight to the 9-to-5, KCCI reports. (The Register has a photo gallery showing the McCaughey clan "from diapers to diplomas," as well as a timeline of their family life through the years.)