Surrogate mother Teresa Anderson delivered five boys, April 26, 2005 to a couple she'd met on the Internet.
The couple had tried for about a decade to start a family. They underwent in vitro fertilization, in which doctors harvested eggs from Gonzalez's ovaries and fertilized them with her husband's sperm in a laboratory.
First born was Enrique, then Jorge a minute later. Gabriel came third. Then Javier and, finally, Victor. Gabriel was the biggest, at 3 pounds, 15 ounces; Javier the smallest, at 3 pounds, 7 ounces. Enrique was 3 pounds, 14 ounces; Jorge 3 pounds, 13 ounces; and Victor 3 pounds, 8 ounces.
Javier was taken to the cardiac unit at Phoenix Children's Hospital's because the left side of his heart was underdeveloped and could not properly pump blood. He was reported in stable condition.
Luisa Gonzalez, 32, the children's genetic mother, said she began to cry when the first of the quintuplets emerged. "I've been waiting for this for a long time," she said. "I cannot say enough about Teresa and what she's done for us. She has given me my dream; she has given us our family."
The babies were born in the 33rd week of Anderson's pregnancy. A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.
"Teresa's a wonderful woman she's doing great," Dr. John Elliott, who delivered the quintuplets, reported.
Anderson, 25, had planned to use the $15,000 to help her study to be a nurse and support her own family. She and her husband have two children.
But when the Andersons, of Mesa, discovered that all five embryos had taken hold, they decided to decline payment because of the expenses that Gonzalez, a homemaker, and her husband, Enrique Moreno, a landscaper, will now face.
Moreno Quintuplets - Surrogate Births
Quintuplets
Moreno Quintuplets
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