Who’d Conceive of Such Joy? : Karen and Al Miner Look Back as Quadruplets Near Terrible Twos

All they had wanted was “one little baby,” but after countless fertility treatments and 4 1/2 agonizing years of waiting for a pregnancy, Karen and Al Miner got not one but four babies.

In quick succession, Brianna, Whitney, Vincent and Jeffrey were born Feb. 10, 1990--eight weeks early--at UCI Medical Center in Orange, the first quadruplets born in the county after the innovative GIFT fertility treatment.

Nearly two years later, all four toddlers are healthy--and life at the Miner household will never be the same.

“I don’t know if I would recommend quadruplets,” Karen Miner mused as, in a rare moment of peace, her two boys and two beribboned girls played quietly beside her. “But we were very lucky to get what we’ve got. To the people with infertility problems, I say, ‘Hang in there!’ And if you end up with one or two or three--or even four--we are really blessed.”

Along with their blessings, the Miners have seen major changes since the children were born.

The family recently moved from Orange to Chino Hills--to a four-bedroom house with a bigger back yard and a neighborhood with more children. Al Miner, 36, has a new job, a shorter commute and new financial constraints, but he was recently promoted to vice president of a manufacturing firm.

His energetic, 34-year-old wife still spends much of her week caring for four demanding children, but with help from a live-in sitter, she resumed her teaching career in September, working two days a week at her Fullerton school’s computer and video laboratory. She also regularly counsels other mothers expecting triplets or quadruplets, telling them what to expect, how to cope.

As for the babies, they are four assertive individuals, on the cusp of the terrible twos. There are occasional tantrums--plus tussles over who gets to “drive” their pint-size plastic car. But most of the time, their parents and doctors said, they are delightful.

The other night, as Miner came home from work, Brianna heard him first, signaling his arrival by furiously tapping black patent-leather shoes on the bottom of her highchair. Seconds later, Whitney was waving her arms, and the brothers, also in highchairs, took up a chant. “Da Da! Da Da! Da Da!” their birdlike voices called.

No matter that they had spent the last two hours cuddling with Mom. Now they wanted Daddy--and Miner was quick to oblige. He swung Vincent in the air, flying him toward the ceiling, then moved from one wriggling toddler to the next, giving each a special hug and kiss.

Such is homecoming at the Miner household. Every night.

Since the birth of the children, the Miner family moved from a “doctor-centered” life--one in which every stage of Karen Miner’s ovulation cycle was monitored--to a completely “family-centered” existence, he said.

Still the Miners remember too well the heartache of trying--and, for years failing--to conceive. Now, “I would never give my babies up. But I wish I could share,” Karen Miner said.

They remember too her high-risk pregnancy, her 54 days in the hospital hoping to beat the odds and carry four babies to term. It was a “scary” time, she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be bringing any babies home.”

And when the children came early, at 32 weeks of gestation, there were new worries. For though the girls and Vincent were healthy, the smallest, Jeffrey, arrived in serious condition, on a respirator because fluid had seeped into a lung.

Jeffrey remained in the hospital for five weeks, his parents said, but now is fine.

Outside the hospital, all four babies were followed by UCI Medical Center’s neonatal primary-care clinic for developmental problems. But when the children reached 18 months, the Miners were told that they no longer needed to come to that clinic.

Jeffrey’s lungs had healed, and he was breathing normally, his parents said.

Also, Al Miner said, “we thought (the babies) were going to be speech delayed,” because twins and other multiple-birth children often are.

But at the last UCI exam, he said, “we were told they (specialists) didn’t need to follow them anymore. They’re normal.”

Normal but still a rarity among babies.

In spontaneous pregnancy, the odds of having quadruplets are about 1 in 512,000 births. In Karen Miner’s case, the odds were greater because she conceived with the Gamete Intra-Fallopian Transfer fertility technique, in which four of her eggs were extracted, mixed with her husband’s sperm and then quickly injected into a Fallopian tube so fertilization could occur naturally.

With GIFT, most of the eggs usually do not become embryos. So the Miners were amazed to learn that they had four embryos.

Born from separate eggs, the toddlers look--and act--like very different youngsters. Three are blond with brown eyes, but Vincent has brown hair and brown eyes. According to their parents, Whitney wants to be the leader, Brianna is “a very determined little girl,” Jeffrey is “all boy” and loves to play outside and Vincent is quiet, very sensitive and “very organized, picking up everything in the house.”

Doctors are impressed with how well the quadruplets are developing-- and how well their parents are caring for them. The babies “are gorgeous. They are amazing,” said Dr. Manuel Porto, a UCI Medical Center expert in high-risk obstetrics who delivered them.

The Miners have never wished to promote their children as quadruplets and have turned down offers to do so. “I guess, to me, we have quadruplets, but I don’t think anything of it,” Karen Miner said. “My God--we have four babies all born at the same time. What’s the big hoopla?”

So the Miners are not pleased when, pushing two double strollers through the mall, passersby gawk or remark acidly, “I’m glad they’re yours.”

Still, the children go out often--not just to the mall but recently on family trips to Las Vegas and New Mexico. And, Karen Miner said, she likes to take them on errands--usually one or two at a time, so she can spend special time with each child.

Also, in keeping with the family’s goal of a normal childhood, she has joined a play group. At least once a week, her toddlers play with a set of triplets, a set of twins, plus a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old.

In all, she said, rearing four toddlers at once is mostly “kinda fun,” despite the limits.

Still, other parents get to learn from their mistakes with the firstborn and can figure out how to handle the next one.

But at the Miner household, she said with a laugh, “we’re going to make them all at the same time.”