2 Septuplets Buried Near Family Home

Samuel and Patricia Frustaci buried two of their septuplets Friday in a private ceremony in Riverside, the same day in which the two most critically ill of the surviving five babies made small gains for the first time in several days.

The remaining three infants showed steady improvement, officials for Childrens Hospital of Orange County said.

Samuel Frustaci said the two dead babies--stillborn Christina Elizabeth and David Anthony, nicknamed Peanut because he was only half the size of the other siblings, who survived only 64 hours--were buried at Olivewood Cemetery near their Riverside home in a private ceremony.

Family Rites

“It was attended strictly by the family,” he said.

Meanwhile, Childrens Hospital personnel continued to monitor the surviving five babies, especially the two in the worst condition.

“Doctors still are very concerned about them,” hospital spokeswoman Laura Johnson said Friday in reference to 11-day-old infants James Martin and Bonnie Marie Frustaci. “But it is at least a step in the right direction.”

All five infants born to Riverside schoolteacher Patti Frustaci are technically listed in critical condition because all are on respirators as a result of a severe lung disease common to premature babies, said Dr. Carrie C. Worcester, director of the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit in Orange.

Earlier this week, Worcester said babies Patricia Ann, Stephen Earl and Richard Charles were “out of the woods” and would probably survive to develop normally. They continued to show “daily improvement,” hospital spokesman Doug Wood said Friday.

Doctors on Friday also were able to reduce oxygen levels on respirators for both James Martin, the baby given only a 50/50 chance of survival, and Bonnie Marie, said Wood, who called it “the first evidence of improvement in several days.”

Both Very Ill

However, hospital officials cautioned that despite the slight improvement, both babies are considered very ill. “The longer they hang on the better, but there is still the river to cross,” Johnson said.

Frustaci, 30, an English teacher at Rubidoux High School, gave birth by Caesarean section to septuplets May 21 at St. Joseph Hospital, which is next to Childrens Hospital.

The infants were born 12 weeks prematurely because Frustaci’s blood pressure had become dangerously high and her obstetrician had feared for her health as well as that of the babies. She had been taken the fertility drug Pergonal.

At Parents’ Home

Patti Frustaci, who remained in the intensive care unit at St. Joseph for more than a week after the birth, is recuperating at her parents’ home in Orange. She was discharged Wednesday. Wood said both parents were visiting the surviving septuplets daily.

Wood said Patricia Ann weighed 1 pound, 9 1/2 ounces; James Martin, 1 pound, 7 1/2 ounces; Stephen Earl, 1 pound, 7 1/2 ounces; Bonnie Marie, 1 pound, 8 ounces, and Richard Charles, 1 pound, 12 1/2 ounces. All but Richard Charles have lost weight since last week.