A woman who advertised her services as a surrogate mother to earn extra cash gave birth to five boys on Tuesday for a childless couple, and declined to accept a fee from them.
Teresa Anderson delivered the quintuplets in five minutes by Caesarean section. All five boys — Enrique, Jorge, Gabriel, Victor and Javier — were doing well, said Craig Fischer, a spokesperson for Banner Good Samaritan Medical Centre in Phoenix, Arizona.
However, Javier has a rare heart defect, and will require a series of operations or a heart transplant.
They were visited in hospital by their biological mother, Luisa Gonzalez, who said in a statement: ”She has given me my dream; she has given us our family.”
The biological parents and Anderson opposed aborting any of the babies, even though selective reduction is often practised in multiple pregnancies.
Anderson also decided against accepting payment because of the expense of raising five children awaiting Gonzalez and Moreno.
Anderson (25) had originally offered her services as a way of earning extra cash. Her previous pregnancies had gone smoothly, and she anticipated few problems when she agreed to carry a baby for Gonzalez and her husband, Enrique Moreno, for a $15 000 fee. But her plans changed dramatically when doctors discovered that all five fertilised embryos from the childless couple had implanted in Anderson’s uterus, and that she was carrying quintuplets.
Her obstetrician, Dr John Elliott, said her decision to carry all five children to term was extraordinary.
”Quintuplets are very, very difficult to carry,” he said, noting the pain and discomfort for the mother.
”To do that for someone else is extraordinary.”
Anderson’s husband, Jerad, said of his wife a few hours after the surgery: ”She’s happy. She’s smiling now. She’s relieved.”
Before the procedure, she was said by doctors to have felt strong enough to walk into the delivery room — something her doctor said he’d never seen with any woman carrying quintuplets. – Guardian Unlimited Â