Quints’ Parents Stunned but Happy; Plans for Help Afoot

While Ventura County’s first quintuplets snoozed in their incubators Friday, their exhausted father leaned against a wall, pondering the thousands of diapers, feedings and college funds in his future. “We’re not going to figure out how to handle it,” he finally said. “We are just going to do it.”

As Joe and Lynn Bova came to grips with their newfound brood, doctors at Community Memorial Hospital said the babies were exceeding expectations for quintuplets.

They were all breathing on their own, and their weights, while low, were not dangerously so. The two boys and three girls--known as A,B,C,D and E in the neonatal intensive care unit--will probably go home in a month.

Still, at 32 weeks--seven weeks premature--they are tiny and need time to develop the ability to suck, swallow and breathe at the same time, doctors said. The smallest weighs 3 pounds, 15 ounces and the largest is 4 pounds, 9 ounces.

Each of the infants was quietly sprawled in a heated incubator Friday. Some had thick black hair, others wispy curls. They have names but the couple haven’t pinned them to a particular child yet. They are Abigail Lynn, Kathryn Ann, Emiline Madison, Samuel Matthew and Nathaniel Steven.

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Two babies have thin tubes in their noses that periodically inject oxygen to ward off a condition that can shut down breathing.

“The babies will go home with no significant issues as far as being premature,” said Dr. John van Houten, medical director of the neonatal unit. “You couldn’t ask for a better outcome.”

Lynn Bova, a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher at Junipero Serra Elementary School in Ventura, was resting Friday and not speaking to reporters. She has been in the hospital on bed rest for 11 weeks and probably won’t go home for at least five days, doctors said.

But efforts are underway to help the Ventura couple, who already have a 1 1/2-year-old son.

The Ventura Missionary Church has organized more than 100 people from the church and the city school district to work in shifts at the couple’s home.

The church is also asking for donations of rocking chairs--the Bovas only have one--along with a few new cribs.

Kathleen Parsa, the church member organizing the effort, figures the family will need 40 diapers a day. Then they will need two large boxes of detergent a week, as well as having to clip nails from 100 fingers and toes. Not to mention what will be a seemingly endless supply of formula and baby food.

“We asked people to commit to one three-hour shift a week for baby care for three months with the option to renew,” Parsa said. “People can sign up to bring meals once a month.”

The Ventura city school district is also organizing a fund-raiser for the Bovas.

Joe Bova, 35, an administrator for the Ventura Unified School District, said that without community help, getting through the first year would be impossible.

The couple tried for five years to have a baby and then adopted their son Ryan. On her first course of fertility drugs, Lynn Bova got pregnant.

“When we went for the ultrasound we were very excited. We saw two heartbeats,” Joe Bova recalled. “Then we saw more, and it all turned into fear and worry.”

The Bovas’ religious beliefs made them unwilling to have a doctor eliminate some of the embryos with potassium chloride injections. Bova said he isn’t afraid of the new responsibilities that will come with his near--instant family.

“But I have some anxiety about giving quality time to Ryan,” he said.

The couple will put the children in the living room of their three-bedroom house. Three will go in one crib and two in another, he said.

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Community Memorial’s medical director, Dr. Richard Reisman, said it is very rare for quintuplets to breathe room air the day after their birth. He credited the hospital’s well-equipped neonatal unit, its hiring of a full-time perinatalogist and careful management of Bova’s pregnancy with keeping the babies inside long enough to ensure a healthy outcome.

Lynn Bova hasn’t been able to hold the babies since they were delivered in two minutes via C-section late Thursday afternoon, but her family says she was ecstatic when she saw them.

“I wish I could accurately describe her face,” said her father, Don Boyd. “It took on an angelic quality. It was the kind of thing you wish you could have taped but you’ll just have to remember.”