This mom had 9 kids by age 28. She shares the ‘mad dash’ of every day

@mzkora and @gqgemini via Instagram

Kora Duke, 39, didn't plan on having nine children by the time she was 28.

"It really was just the way it happened," the Nevada mom tells TODAY.com. "The majority (of my pregnancies) were not intentional at all. Traditional birth control methods didn't work."

Duke met her husband, Andre, when she was a sophomore and he was a senior in high school. After 22 years of marriage, the couple are parents to: Elijah, 21; Sheena, 20; forever baby Yuna; Zhaan, 17; Cairo, 16; Saiyah, 14; Avi, 13; Romani, 12; and Tahj, 10.

For 12 consecutive years, Duke was pregnant.

"I only knew myself as being pregnant," she says of those years. "I didn't even remember the parts when I wasn't."

'I'll always say I'm a mom of nine'

Duke and her husband care for their eight living children in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their third child, Yuna, died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) at seven days old.

"I'll always say I'm a mom of nine," Duke adds.

Duke says life today is "a lot easier than when (her kids) were young." Other than having everyone ask her what's for dinner "every single day," she adds, her children are fairly self-sufficient and it's "easier raising them now that they're older."

That's not to say being a mom of four teenagers is easy.

"Of course, the teenage life is a little dramatic these days," Duke explains. "When they're teenagers is a lot harder than when they're toddlers, because there's so much personality and so much attitude and you're dealing with their drama on top of the drama with you.

"But other than that," she adds, "it's pretty laid back in our house with all the kids."

'I had three kids in diapers at any one time'

On a typical weekday, Duke says she wakes up at 5:30 every morning to take her oldest daughter to work. Prior to leaving, she says she tries to wake up "her high schoolers" to make sure they get to school on time.

"It's impossible to wake a teenager," Duke laughs. "You literally have to push them off the bed, take the blanket, throw the blanket on the other side of the room and hope they wake up."

After taking her high schoolers to school, her middle school-aged daughter to orchestra class, then driving back home to take her middle-school aged son to school and make sure her elementary school-aged son is at the bus stop on time, Duke says she can finally take a breath.

"I'm on-the-go from 5:30 in the morning until at least 8:00," Duke adds.

That's not to say the "mad dash" of any typical day means Duke can't recall what it was like to be a young mom of multiple children under 5 years of age. She found out she was pregnant for the first time in October of 2000, when she was 17.

"It was insane. I was always complaining on Facebook that I'm big and I'm tired and I'm screaming and (complaining about) the lack of sleep," Duke says. "I had three kids in diapers at any one time — it was miserable, but I went with it. It's all I knew."

'I never really took time for myself'

After giving birth to her last child, Duke says she had her "tubes tied," also known as tubal ligation — a permanent form of birth control that Duke says has given her the opportunity to "prioritize myself."

"I never really took time for myself," she adds. "I learned that I am my own person and my whole being doesn't revolve around just being a mother. That's something I really did learn after I stopped having children."

Part of getting to know the other aspects of her identity, Duke says, is realizing she "needed to take care of my health," adding that having "so many kids does take a toll on your body."

That period of self-exploration also allowed Duke to focus on her relationship with her husband, she says, adding that for so long "all we knew was how to be parents."

"After I got my tubes tied we were like: 'Yeah, we're going to focus on ourselves.' And that's what we did," Duke says. "That's the time we realized that we actually like each other."

'We want to travel the world'

Duke and her husband are preparing to send their oldest son to college — milestone Duke isn't entirely sure she's prepared for.

"He'll be going off to the dorms," she says. "I don't know if I'm ready for that. For 21 years I've had everybody under my roof so my son actually leaving home is kind of a shock.

"It hasn't hit me," Duke adds, "but as soon as we have to pack up the car I'm sure I'm going to have a full breakdown."

As difficult as that moment will be, Duke says that doesn't mean she hasn't considered what life will be like once all of her children have left the house. She shares that her and her husband plan to "travel the world" as soon as they're "empty nesters."

"We don't take many trips because there's 10 of us and it's very expensive, but we want to travel the world," she says. "We haven't had a chance to see the world yet, so we're counting down the days until our youngest leaves for college."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com

Advertisement