After ultrasounds allowed her to see her seven babies on two different occasions, Mali resident Halima Cisse says she was fully prepared to take care of the the large brood.
But imagine Cisse's surprise Tuesday when she gave birth to not seven, but nine babies -- five girls and two boys, according to Fanta Siby, Mali's minister of heath and social development. He says two of them must have been hiding behind the others during the ultrasounds.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple births are extremely rare; only 87.7 out of every 100,000 births result in three or more babies.