Claudell Ciceron Jean-Jacques comes from a large family so she always dreamed of having a big clan of her own. Claudell and her husband say it has been a wild yet rewarding journey raising their 11 children.
“On most days, our home is very loud and usually at least a few end in an argument. But they are also very loving and look out for each other in every way,” she says.

They are such a tight knit bunch, that they even decided to all have surgery on the same day.

When the children needed umbilical hernia repair, the Jean-Jacques turned to Dr. Colin Knight, a credentialed pediatric surgeon with Miami Associates in Pediatric Surgery, PA who practices at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. “Although hernia repair is a fairly common procedure, performing surgery on six siblings in one day is definitely memorable,” he said.

“We noticed that each of their belly buttons stuck out, and they seemed to become more pronounced around the time they entered kindergarten. A few of our older daughters started to become self-conscious about how their belly buttons looked so we knew it was time to get them repaired,” said Jean-Jacques.

An umbilical hernia occurs when the stomach muscles where the umbilical cord pass through do not join completely after birth. The intestines and other tissues can even bulge through this weak spot around the belly button.

All six surgeries took place on Sept. 20 at the Nicklaus Children’s Ambulatory Surgery Center. The children were at ease knowing their siblings were in on the task together.

“It is a fairly simple surgery that can be done in less than 30 minutes. We scheduled each child back to back and were done in 3 hours,” said Dr. Knight.

And the family has more excitement to look forward to: a new baby brother or sister expected to arrive in the new year. “We are all hoping the baby will be a boy, which would round out the family to six boys and six girls,” said Jean-Jacques.