2nd Set of Quads This Year Born at UC Irvine Center

A Santa Ana woman gave birth to quadruplets at UC Irvine Medical Center here Wednesday afternoon, the second foursome to be born this year at the hospital.

Unlike the ones that arrived last Feb. 10, the boy and three girls born prematurely Wednesday to 28-year-old Consolacion (Solly) Amante were not the result of fertility treatments, hospital officials said.

The chances of such “spontaneous” quadruplets is about 1 in 512,000 births, said Dr. Manuel Porto, the obstetrician who delivered the Amante infants by Cesarean section shortly after 1 p.m.

“Even though she had seen the sonograms and we had gone over it, there’s still that surreal aspect to it. She didn’t really believe it until they were there--four babies,” said Porto.

The quadruplets, who were born 10 weeks prematurely, were in serious but stable condition.

The boy, Jeremy Stewart, the biggest at 3 pounds, 9 1/2 ounces, arrived first. Seconds later came a 2-pound, 14 1/2-ounce girl named Jeraldine Elaine. Then Jessamine Eileen weighed in at 2 pounds, 14 1/2 ounces. Last was 2-pound, 12-ounce Jacqueline Elise.

Their father, Oscar Amante, 30, who workes for a computer printer manufacturing firm in Irvine, was present for the births. “At first I thought it couldn’t be happening to us, but it’s great,” he said. “Our entire family is very excited.”

The Amantes also have a son, Jonathan, 4, and a daughter, Jane, 1.

The previous set of quadruplets arrived at UC Irvine on Feb. 10 to Karen Miner, a 32-year-old schoolteacher from Orange. They were the county’s first set of quadruplets to be born through a non-test-tube fertility technique known as GIFT, which involves placing sperm and eggs in the mother’s Fallopian tubes.