Doctors harvested eggs from Gonzalez's ovaries and fertilized them with her husband's sperm in a laboratory. They then implanted five embryos in Anderson's uterus and told her there was a 1-in-3 chance that one would develop into a healthy fetus.
Anderson said she sensed immediately that she was pregnant, an intuition confirmed by tests 10 days later. She also knew, with the experience of four pregnancies behind her, that something was different this time.
Luisa Gonzalez and her husband, Enrique Moreno, meet with Teresa Anderson. Doctors say Anderson may be the first surrogate mother to give birth to quintuplets.
(Dave Cruz -- Arizona Republic)
|
|
"I felt there was something more going on than one," she said. "With the pain I was feeling, one wasn't going to cause that kind of commotion."
Then in January, the two women went to a clinic for Anderson's ultrasound.
Gonzalez was stunned by the technician's announcement. "Are you sure there's five in there?" she remembers asking. Her face became hot and she started fanning herself. Both women recall Gonzalez exclaiming, "I just wanted one!" and Anderson crying, "Sorry!"
Multiple births are closely associated with fertility treatments; their frequency has more than tripled in the past two decades. Last May, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued new guidelines recommending that for patients younger than 35, no more than two embryos should be implanted, and possibly no more than one.
"If you put more than two, the pregnancy rate doesn't go up significantly," said Alan DeCherney, an obstetrician at the medical school of the University of California at Los Angeles. But, he said, the chances of multiple births and health risks do rise. "When you have anything greater than twins, infants are at a greater risk of prematurity or not making it at all."
The guidelines also note that doctors should make individual determinations based on their own research and patient histories. Gonzalez's fertility specialist, Jay Nemiro, did not respond to a message left at his office yesterday. John Elliott, Anderson's obstetrician and a specialist in multiple births who was not involved in the fertility treatment decisions, said doctors are often compelled to implant extra embryos to maximize the chance of success and minimize the chance a patient will have to undergo the costly in vitro process again.
Despite the risks, Elliott said, Anderson's pregnancy has gone remarkably well. She has gained at least 80 pounds and has not required medication or a hospital stay -- though she has enlisted her mother-in-law to care for her daughters during the day.
Anderson said she entered the surrogacy arrangement with the intention of earning $15,000. Gonzalez and her husband are reluctant to talk about the financial agreement they reached -- Arizona law is ambiguous about whether surrogates can be compensated.
The matter, though, has been resolved: Anderson said she determined several months ago not to accept money from the couple, who took out a second mortgage on their home just to cover the fertility treatments.
It will be reward enough, she said, to see the couple go home with five babies.
"I was just going to be pregnant, you know?" she said. "It was never going to be that huge of a big deal for me."
Special correspondent Kimberly Edds contributed to this report.
