FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Father of Quads Had Hoped for Only One

Consolacion (Solly) Amante said that her two children would have been sufficient but that her husband persuaded her to try for a third.

But, as is now known, the Amantes got more than they expected.

On Monday, their quadruplets were transferred from UCI Medical Center, where they were born Wednesday, to the neonatal intensive care nursery at the FHP Hospital in Fountain Valley, where the parents are members of the hospital’s health plan. The three girls and one boy made the trip by ambulance, doctors said.

Oscar Amante, 30, who works for an Irvine computer-printer manufacturer, and Consolacion, 28, posed briefly for photographs Monday, sitting side by side in the nursery, each holding two babies.

Dressed in hospital surgical gowns, the parents appeared nervous as newspaper and television photographers captured the moment.

Dr. Glenn Ginoza, director of the intensive care nursery, said the babies were in excellent condition, but that they should be in the hospital for another five to seven weeks. The boy, Jeremy, was the heaviest of the four, weighing in Monday at 3 pounds, 3 ounces, Ginoza said. The other babies ranged from 2 pounds, 5 ounces to 2 pounds, 6 ounces.

Doctors allowed the babies to stay out of their incubators for about five minutes while they posed for pictures. Then, the nurses promptly returned them to the small enclosed beds and rehooked all the wires that give an instant accounting of the babies’ body functions.

The quadruplets, who were born 10 weeks prematurely, were not a 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.

“When they first told me I was going to have four babies, I was crying. Now I am happy and excited,” Consolacion Amante told reporters.

“Oh no, no more children,” she said. “They asked me that at the hospital--what a silly question.”

The Amantes have two other children--a son, Jonathan, 4, and a daughter, Jane, 1.

Consolacion Amante said she was happy with just two children, but her husband “wanted to try for three. We ended up with six. That’s why I was crying.”

Both parents come from relatively large families. Consolacion has four brothers and sisters, and Oscar has 10 brothers and sisters. He also has one set of twins on his side of the family.

How will the Amantes care for the four new babies?

“My mom, my sisters and my grandmother,” Consolacion answered. “They have volunteered to help.”

Meanwhile, the Amantes will have to make adjustments when it comes to shopping. For example, mandatory car seats. How many do you get?

“I don’t know yet,” Oscar Amante said. “We’ll have to take one day at a time. Whatever we buy, there will have to be a lot of them.”

The cost of keeping the children rings up rather quickly. Doctors figure that it costs about $1,000 a day per child for intensive care. That’s $4,000 a day or $49,000 per child for 49 days for a grand total of $196,000 for the four of them.

The good news is that the Amantes’ health plan will pick up the entire bill, according to a hospital spokesman, who added that in addition, FHP gave each of the babies a $1,000 U.S. government savings bond.