Couple ‘Hits the Jackpot’ With Birth of Quintuplets

SAN FRANCISCO —  After years of infertility treatment, a Saratoga couple finally “hit the jackpot” and as the wife gave birth to quintuplets.

Alicia, Erica, Cami, Lori and Victor--four girls and a boy--were born Wednesday to Sara Westendorf Rothmuller, 41, and Ken Rothmuller, 49.

“After years of infertility treatments and almost giving up hope, we finally hit the jackpot,” the Rothmullers said in a joint statement released by Pacific Medical Center, where the babies were born.

The odds of giving birth to quintuplets without medical treatments are 1 in 50 million. But those odds rise sharply when treated by infertility specialists.

The quintuplets weighed between 3 pounds and 3 pounds, 15 ounces and were delivered at slightly more than 32 weeks of gestation, about eight weeks short of full term, the hospital said.

“They’re breathing their own air, and they’re not on ventilators,” hospital spokeswoman Libby Fox said.

“They’re doing great.”

A San Francisco Examiner check of hospitals and newspaper files indicates that the last San Francisco Bay area quintuplet birth occurred Dec. 8, 1974, to Alvin and Charlotte Lange of San Jose. All but one of those infants died shortly after birth.

The first recorded quintuplets who survived past infancy were the Dionne sisters, born in a rural Canadian town in 1934.

The most famous American quintuplets are the Fischers, born in 1963 to Mary Ann Fischer. All five children, four girls and a boy, still live reclusively near Aberdeen, S.D.