She’s ‘Much Happier’ After 1st Meeting : 5 Frustaci Babies Receive a ‘Sudden’ Visitor--Mom

Patti Frustaci has visited her five surviving septuplets for the first time, touching and talking with the babies, some of whom “opened their eyes and seemed to respond to her touch,” Dr. Martin Feldman, her obstetrician, said Sunday.

“We felt it was important for her and her children to get together,” Feldman said. It would be a catastrophe if another infant were to die before their mother got to see them, he said.

Calling the Saturday evening visit “sudden,” Feldman said that Frustaci, 30, a Riverside high school teacher, also “wanted to see the children as soon as possible.” She was “much happier” afterward, he said.

The meeting between mother and babies was photographed by People magazine, which has signed a contract with the Frustacis for exclusive publicity rights.

Although the mother’s condition continued to improve, Feldman said, her release from nearby St. Joseph Hospital’s intensive care unit “will probably be delayed” until this morning, because of fatigue. She could go home as early as Wednesday, he said.

The five critically ill babies remained stable Sunday, and all had improved slightly, said Dr. David Hicks, a neonatologist at Childrens Hospital of Orange County. He said that Baby B remained the most critical but had “made some progress overnight.”

Despite the complications associated with premature births, all five infants are “progressing as well as we would expect,” Hicks said. The hope that all will survive is bolstered “as each day goes by,” he said.

The septuplets were delivered by Caesarean section last Tuesday morning at St. Joseph Hospital in Frustaci’s 28th week of pregnancy--about 12 weeks premature. She had taken fertility drugs.

One of the septuplets, a girl, died in the uterus. A boy, designated Baby F but nicknamed “Peanut” because he was smaller than the others, died Friday morning of cardiopulmonary failure.

Lungs a Major Concern

As in all premature babies, lung problems are the most threatening, Hicks said. The bodily system that keeps the lungs expanded is not well developed in premature babies.

An apparently diminishing problem for the infants is jaundice, and Hicks said at least three of the babies have been taken off photo-therapy treatments. None of the infants are showing liver problems, Hick said, and their blood pressure is good.

Ultrasound scanning to detect bleeding or other brain problems found no malfunction in any of the Frustaci babies, whose “neurological status looks very good at this point,” Hicks said.

Both Frustaci and her husband, Samuel, 32, plan to meet with reporters Tuesday morning, a hospital spokeswoman said. It will be the mother’s first such meeting since the births.