Frustaci Leaves Hospital to Recuperate at Parents’ Home

Cradling a bouquet of roses, a joyous Patti Frustaci left St. Joseph Hospital Wednesday, her five surviving septuplets remaining behind, to continue recuperating at her parents’ home in Orange.

“We You Mom and Dad, From Patti, James, Stephen, Bonnie and Richard,” proclaimed a thin, vertical banner lowered from a fifth-floor window of adjacent Childrens Hospital of Orange County, where the five 9-day-old Frustaci infants are in critical but stable condition in the neonatal intensive care unit.

“They’re beautiful. I hope they all make it,” Frustaci said in answer to questions as she was whisked in a wheelchair down a hospital ramp, past a bank of reporters to a waiting car. “They look good. Some are sicker than others.”

Wearing a lavender robe and followed by a wagonful of stuffed animals attached to balloons, Frustaci, 30, emerged from the hospital about 12:30 p.m. to the cheers and applause of employees who crowded several balconies above her exit route.

The mother said she was feeling “great, great,” but a few seconds later, answering the same question, she admitted she was tired.

Would she be able to take care of five newborns, Frustaci was asked.

“I hope so, I hope so,” she answered.

“Doesn’t she look great,” an ebullient Samuel Frustaci, 32, boomed as he accompanied his wife down the ramp. He thanked the news media for their interest. “Keep up your prayers. We’ll need them.”

Asked where they were headed, he replied, “We’re gonna get something to eat.”

Then, Sam and Patti Frustaci each gave a hug to Dr. Martin Feldman, the obstetrician who delivered the seven infants by Caesarean section May 21, and sped off.

The couple stopped at a nearby restaurant for lunch before heading to the home of Patti Frustaci’s parents, Dick and Bonnie Jorgensen of Orange, where she was expected to spend the night.

The five surviving babies--Patricia Ann, James Martin, Stephen Earl, Bonnie Marie and Richard Charles--are on respirators because they suffer from hyaline membrane disease, a lung affliction common to premature babies. They are not expected to leave the hospital until possibly August.

The sixth-born septuplet, David Anthony (nicknamed “Peanut”) died 64 hours after birth, and the seventh, later named Christina Elizabeth, was stillborn.

The second-born, James Martin, is in the most critical condition and has been given a 50-50 chance of survival. The fourth-born, Bonnie Marie, also is not improving, but the remaining three are doing well, hospital spokesmen said.

The babies were born 12 weeks prematurely and weighed between 1 pound, 1 ounce, and 1 pound, 13 ounces at birth. Patti Frustaci had taken fertility drugs.

Feldman said it will take four to six weeks for Patti Frustaci to fully recover. Although she can visit her babies daily, Feldman said he has ordered her to rest.

After his prized patient departed Wednesday, Feldman said Patti Frustaci’s “outlook is good. I think deep down she thinks all are going to make it, but she understands their problems.”

If the second-born baby dies, “I think the loss will hit her hard, but she is prepared for it,” Feldman said.

The obstetrician--after whom the first boy, James Martin, was named--said he thinks that with the media blitz, people expected Patti Frustaci to deliver seven babies and take them all home a few days later. But he and the Frustacis, who wanted a large family, knew from the beginning that the chances were against all seven surviving, he said.

“We delivered seven, wound up with six, and now we’re down to five,” he said.

“Patti definitely is going to get some. She’s definitely going to take home three, and most likely four,” said Feldman.

“I think we’ve accomplished a great deal,” he said.

While the major threat to the five surviving septuplets is the lung disease, all have overcome two other medical problems--an opening in the duct between the aorta and pulmonary artery, and jaundice.

Patti Frustaci went to Feldman in January when she was nine weeks pregnant, and the obstetrician discovered she was carrying seven babies. He hospitalized her on March 25, when she was 20 weeks pregnant, to ward off premature labor and to closely monitor her and the babies’ health.

Feldman ordered the delivery when Patti Frustaci was 28 weeks and two days pregnant because her blood pressure increased severely and she was having difficulty breathing.

The babies were delivered by a team of 38 doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists.

A spokeswoman for St. Joseph Hospital, where the babies were delivered and where Patti Frustaci was hospitalized, said her bill --excluding the doctors’ charges --was more than $35,000. The bill for the infants’ care is expected to exceed $700,000. Sam Frustaci, an industrial equipment salesman, has said his insurance covers each infant up to $1 million.

Initial Recovery Slow

Feldman said Patti Frustaci has an appointment with him next week, and she is on medication to control the pain of her eight-inch-long vertical abdominal incision. She was released from the intensive care unit Monday and spent the last two days in the general maternity ward, he said. Her initial recovery was “a little slow,” but she “quickly improved,” Feldman said.

He had no qualms about discharging her. “I don’t think she would have stayed another day,” he said.

The Frustacis also have a 14-month-old son, who likewise was conceived after Patti Frustaci took fertility drugs.

Feldman said he has been “surprised everyone made so much of” the septuplet birth. (The Frustaci babies will be a People magazine cover story.)

And his sudden fame has amazed him, Feldman said.

“I’m just a simple country doctor,” he said with a laugh.