Couple Contemplates Life With Quintuplets : Families: Marcella Quezada, mother of five newborns, credits patience and faith with helping her through her pregnancy.

One day after giving birth to five healthy babies, Marcella Quezada said it was patience and her belief in God that carried her through three years of trying to become pregnant and five months of hospitalization.

“Everything I’ve ever wanted in life I had to work hard for,” Quezada said from her hospital bed Friday afternoon. “Nothing has ever come easy for me. I think that’s what happened here. God made me wait. I guess he decided to give me more than one baby for having to wait so long.”

The five babies--Andrew, Raymond, Tiffany, Kimberly and Patricia--were conceived with the help of fertility drugs and born nearly two months premature. Four of the five weighed more than three pounds, the normal size for a single birth delivered in the 32nd week of pregnancy.

“All five babies are doing wonderfully,” said Dr. Michael Tabak, one of five neonatologists providing postnatal care at Kaiser Permanente. “They are all (breathing) room air, their vital signs are stable, and we have begun to feed four of them. The smallest one we probably will begin to feed in a day or so. We anticipate no problems at this time.”

And because the babies were born healthy, Quezada plans to make good on a promise she made with the Virgin of San Juan de los Lagos.

“Now, before my babies turn 1 year old, I have to take them to Mexico, because that was my promise,” said Quezada, with her husband, Ramon, at her bedside. “I’m very fortunate and I’m very thankful that they are healthy.”

The babies come into the Quezadas’ life as they still struggle to rebuild from the Northridge earthquake, which destroyed their Canoga Park condominium. They are now renting a four-bedroom house with her parents.

But the disaster did not stop their resolve to bring a child into their lives.

“We had been trying for so long,” she said, adding that she began taking fertility drugs in May and conceived two months later. “I was just lucky.”

The odds of naturally conceiving quintuplets are 1 in 50 million, doctors said. Multiple births are not uncommon, however, when fertility drugs are taken.

A calm and smiling Marcella Quezada said caring for five children will be a learning experience.

“Well, I guess I’m going to be finding out what it’s like pretty quickly,” she said. “It’s going to be a new experience that is going to keep me busy for a long time.”

Ramon Quezada, a cook at a Woodland Hills restaurant, is a bit more worried. He is all too aware of the high cost of child rearing.

“A stroller for five costs $700,” he said with a sigh.

Mead Johnson, a baby formula company that heard about the births, will donate formula for the babies. The hospital costs were covered by the couple’s insurance plan.

They have received some help already. The nurses, who have been caring for Marcella since before Thanksgiving, threw the couple a baby shower last Tuesday. The Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth said some donations of clothes and used furniture have trickled in.