Spotlight On Septuplets Lifts Sextuplets’ Mom From Shadows Help Didn’t Come In May, But Offers Coming In Now

Until a couple of days ago, it seemed as if people had forgotten that Jacqueline Thompson, a District of Columbia resident, had given birth to sextuplets, a very rare occurrence and one that caused quite a stir when it happened last May.

Companies did not offer her family free diapers or any other free baby products. No volunteers stepped forward to help with the multitude of tasks. Reporters disappeared.

Then, after the news this week that an Iowa woman had given birth to septuplets, a caller to the Tom Joyner morning radio show said Jacqueline and Linden Thompson and their children were in need of help. The show took up the cause and Friday the family received free child care and a support group has started getting steady inquiries from people who want to help.

“We had a letter-writing campaign, writing churches to ask for help. We got no response,” said Lynda Bugg, chairwoman of Sisters In Touch, an organization of eight women who have been helping the couple.

The babies, born May 8, were the first known set of sextuplets born to a black family in the United States. Their mother did not undergo fertility treatment, but both of the Thompsons have cases of multiple births in their families. One of the six babies, Allison Nicole, was stillborn. The other children, Octavia, Stella, Emily, Richard and AnnMarie are all healthy.

A Procter & Gamble Co. spokeswoman said the family should have received a voucher for a six- to eight-week supply of free diapers for each child, the company’s standard contribution for families with multiple births.

John McKeegan, a spokesman at Johnson & Johnson, asked that the family contact him. “We don’t have an ironclad policy, but based on the needs of this family there certainly may be things we can do.”

The D.C. Housing Finance Agency did find larger living quarters for the Thompsons, who live on Linden Thompson’s salary from two jobs. The family moved from a one-bedroom duplex to a three-bedroom apartment, subsidized by the agency, according to Bugg. They found a six-bedroom house to rent with an option to buy, but with rent at $1,500 a month the Thompsons can’t afford it.

Friday, Jacqueline Thompson, 32, and her babies were at the Edward C. Mazique Parent/Child Center, where the babies will come for day care.

“I realize that she had not gotten the help she obviously needed. She did not know that she qualified for Head Start,” said Leslie Johnson, executive director of one of the city’s two Head Start programs.

Johnson, who contacted Thompson, said the center would also act as an official drop-off point to receive donations.

Thompson said Friday’s visit to the center was the first time she had gone out with the children except to see the doctor. “We usually use two cars,” she said, pointing to five car seats lined up nearby. “They sent a van for us today.”

She and her husband have not been outside the apartment without the babies. “I really don’t have time,” she said. “I’m with the kids from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. We have a nurse that comes from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. By the time I get to the bed, I collapse.”

Bugg, whose group set up a fund for the family through Riggs National Bank, said frustration grew this week as the media focused on the septuplets born to Kenny and Bobbi McCaughey.

Proctor & Gamble is giving those babies a lifetime supply of diapers. The governor asked the community to help provide a house and President Clinton invited the family to visit the White House.

“I was happy for her that her community was so good to support her,” Jacqueline Thompson said of Bobbi McCaughey. “I wished my community had done the same for me. I was hoping and praying she had healthy babies because I know how hard it is.”