Orange County Septuplets Provided Hope, Heartbreak

The seven babies born to Patti and Sam Frustaci in 1985 took the couple on an odyssey from hope to heartbreak: Only three of the infants survived.

The septuplets--four boys and three girls--were born by caesarean section 12 weeks premature in Orange County. One was stillborn. The other six ranged in weight from 1 pound, 1 ounce to 1 pound, 13 ounces.

During the next 19 days, three of the infants died, all from hyaline membrane disease, a condition in which the lungs collapse after each breath. The surviving infants, Richard, Patricia and Stephen, arrived in critical but stable condition.

Like Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey, whose septuplets were born in Iowa on Wednesday, the Frustacis also used the drug Pergonal to increase their fertility prospects. What began as the hope for a large family quickly became an ordeal. Extraordinary expenses of more than $1 million were only partially offset by offers of help, free food, goods and services and an exclusive interview contract with People magazine.

As mortality of the infants accelerated, many of the offers and endorsements faded away or never materialized. Life became a series of increasingly difficult tests for the teacher and her husband, an industrial-tool salesman. They had sought fertility assistance because of their deep desire for a family, grounded in their Mormon beliefs. Before they conceived the septuplets, they already had one son, a healthy toddler named Joseph.

Attempts to contact the Frustacis on Wednesday were unsuccessful. R. Browne Greene, their former attorney, no longer knew the couple’s whereabouts.