Veronica Mayorga-Real delivered Aaron, Isaac, Priscilla, Joel, and Matilde at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital on Saturday, at 29 weeks 6 days gestation. The babies arrived weighing between 2 1/2 pounds to nearly 4 pounds, which is a good size for quintuplets.
“They’re all so precious,” the new mom said as she cradled Matilde, the only one not still on oxygen. “To expect smaller babies and then have them this size makes me feel truly blessed.”
The birth of quintuplets is no longer uncommon in the U.S. Due to fertility treatments there are 50 sets born annually – but Dr. Nawab said it is rare for all to survive. There are 100 known sets in the world.
Mayorga-Real was taking fertility drugs, but did not do artificial insemination. Already the mom of an 8-year-old boy, she had been trying to conceive again for the past five years.
When she announced that she was expecting 5 babies both her husband and her mother refused to believe her until she e-mailed them a photograph of the ultrasound.
“Any reduction would have to be done by God,” she said.
Houston was the site of the first live-born octuplets in the United States. In 1998, Nkem Chukwu gave birth to six girls and two boys at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. The smallest of the children died a week later, but the rest recently have been reported to be “normal and active” school children.
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