Lucky No. 5

For more than five years, Patty and Scot Shier tried unsuccessfully to have a child. With every trip to the doctor they were told one medical obstacle or another stood in their way.

So after their first attempts at in-vitro fertilization failed, they tried to increase their chances: Instead of the usual four embryos, they asked their doctor to implant seven.

“We were just praying for one child,” said Scot, noting that he and his wife are both only children unaccustomed to large families. “Two would have been phenomenal.”

Try five.

On Tuesday, in the space of barely more than a minute and a half, Patty gave caesarean birth to quintuplets, all of whom doctors proclaimed were doing “terrific” Wednesday as the parents met the press.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Patty, 35, said from her wheelchair at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

“To have the blessing of a large family, you don’t even think about it because it [wasn’t] an option.”

Doctors said the children--Sarah, Joshua, Jonathan, Rachel and Hannah--are one of the hardiest sets ever seen, with each baby weighing at least 3 pounds, 5 ounces.

None of them are twins, since in-vitro fertilization involves extracting the mother’s eggs and implanting fertilized embryos.

The Shiers said they are looking forward to bringing their babies home to Westchester, where they will be sharing two cribs at first.

The trip won’t happen for at least a couple of weeks, until the babies put on weight and switch to real food.

Although Scot is taking time off from his stockbroker job in Sherman Oaks, added support is on the way.

The Shiers’ parents and members of their Hermosa Beach church have volunteered to help out--which may become necessary since Patty is committed to breast-feeding each child.

Since she was admitted to the hospital six weeks ago, about 50 hospital staff have attended to Patty.

More than 30 doctors and nurses, including three surgeons, attended Tuesday’s delivery, which was scheduled when Patty’s breathing became labored.

Rafaat Salem, the Shiers’ Torrance-based fertility specialist, said that Tuesday ended a difficult and costly period for the family.

He said they came to him after consulting various doctors who had recommended operating on her Fallopian tubes, one of which was disconnected and the other clogged with scar tissue from an appendix that ruptured when she was a child.

Salem instead suggested in-vitro fertilization. The procedure, which cost $10,000, was initially unsuccessful because Patty’s immune system rejected a dozen implanted embryos.

But Salem treated her with drugs designed to suppress her body’s antibodies. He then implanted seven fertilized eggs last June. Twelve days later, five of them were confirmed pregnancies.

A representative for Mothers of Supertwins, a Long Island-based organization, said the young Shiers will join about 40 sets of quintuplets living in the nation today.

She said the Shiers appear to be the healthiest born among them, which is almost expected since recent advances in in-vitro fertilization have produced increasingly healthy babies.

The Shier quintuplets are the fifth set to be born in the last 15 years in California.

Before them, the most recent had been the five children of Marcella and Ramon Quezada of West Hills last February.