All Together Now : Couple’s Hands Are Full as Last Quint Comes Home

The dress rehearsals are over for Ramon and Marcella Quezada.

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After months of preparation and weeks of practice, the Quezada family took their fifth and last child home from the hospital Thursday and settled in for the long days and long nights of caring for all the quintuplets.

“I’m happy they’re all together,” Marcella Quezada said, adding that she is not worried about any extra burden Kimberly might cause. “For the last 10 days, I’ve taken care of four--one more won’t make a difference.”

Thursday was a big day for the whole bunch--the four babies, mother, father, grandfather, grandmother and uncle trooped to Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills via a donated limousine to retrieve the smallest member of the brood.

And although carting five infants in five swings, transferring them to five child car seats and continuously adjusting five sleepers is quite a production, the parents wanted the four “veterans” to greet Kimberly, with whom they have not interacted since they were in utero .

“They’re here to pick up their sister,” Marcella proudly announced to a clutch of news cameras as she pulled car seat after car seat out of the white stretch limo. The four sleeping infants, for their part, were oblivious to the media attention and the gathering crowd of hospital staff and passers-by. Young Andrew yawned. Patricia, Tiffany and Raymond just slept.

“Awwwwwwwww,” said Corinne Feldman of Encino, peaking through the crowd to get a glimpse. “They are darling! But once they start walking. . . . Oh, boy.”

As it is now, with help from Marcella’s live-in parents and brother, the couple has the children settled into a routine, Marcella said.

If the children can be fed at the same time, bottles and diapers can be taken care of in 45 minutes. The rest of the family then has three hours to recover before the children start crying again.

But if Marcella is on her own, she said, the system breaks down. By the time she gets through feeding the last one, it’s time to change the first. And by the time she works her way down the diaper line, it’s time to start feeding again.

The Quezada children, born on Feb. 9, were conceived with the aid of fertility drugs after Marcella, 26, and Ramon, 25, had tried unsuccessfully to have children for five years.

The two boys, the biggest of the group, were discharged Feb. 28. Patricia and Tiffany went home the following week.

If there has been any downside to her experience, Marcella said, it has been the lack of the commercial endorsements and sponsorships that routinely follow the births of multiples.

More than simply doing without the assistance that such goods, cash and services can bring, Marcella said the dearth of offers feels to her like a rejection of her children.

“I hate to say this, but a lot of people think we’re Hispanics and we have a lot of kids supported by the government,” she said. “I have received donations, which I appreciate, but as far as health care, I paid for that every month. The government doesn’t support me.”