It's 10 minutes to 8 on a Thursday morning, and the Shier household is eerily calm. Two cats—Linus and Lucy—are asleep on the couch in the tidy, almost grandmotherly living room with lace curtains and shelves of knickknacks. There's virtually no sign of children in this cozy home on a tree-lined Los Angeles street not far from the Pacific Ocean. Just a playpen, its floor scattered with bright toys.
In the kitchen, Patty Shier is sipping lukewarm coffee from her favorite mug, enjoying her last few minutes of solitude. She knows this will all change at 8 o'clock.
At that hour she will become an übermom—five sets of arms, eyes in the back of her head and wolf-sharp hearing. She'll be able to make funny faces at a crying baby, feed two others, and tickle a fourth with her toes, all the while singing a silly song to a fifth. And, as she does every morning, she'll summon up reserves of energy and patience that she never knew she had until January 26, 1996.
That's the day that Patty Shier, formerly Patty Payton, '82, gave birth to quintuplets—Hannah, Sarah, Rachel, Jonathan and Joshua, who turn 20 months in September. That was also the day that the things most of us take for granted—a full night's sleep, the time to return phone calls—became rare luxuries for Patty and her husband Scot, a stockbroker at Dean Witter Reynolds. Now they're eating peanut butter instead of steak, singing "Old MacDonald" to the whole brood instead of taking a romantic walk for two and planning the most mundane tasks (getting the family from the house to the minivan) with the precision of a strategic military maneuver.
But the Shiers wouldn't trade their new life for a year of late mornings in bed. "We don't feel deprived," says Patty, 36. "We waited a long time for this. We feel blessed."
* * *
Like an increasing number of couples who are unable to conceive naturally, Patty and Scot turned to a fertility specialist. And like more and more of those who go through what is often an arduous and expensive process, they found themselves the parents of "supertwins"—otherwise known as triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets and even sextuplets.
Since 1980, as fertility drugs and new fertilization techniques have been refined and become more available, the incidence of supertwins has increased by 272 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The Shier kids were one of 57 sets of surviving quintuplets or sextuplets born in 1995, about a fivefold increase over 25 years ago. According to some estimates, a quarter of all women who successfully undergo fertility treatment give birth to more than one child.
After trying for several years to conceive, the Shiers discovered that Patty had two malformed fallopian tubes. "We looked into adoption, but those doors ended up being closed," Patty explains. "So we did a lot of praying and then we turned to a fertility clinic." They spent $12,000 on an in vitro fertilization package at the Pacific Fertility Center in nearby Torrance. During the process, eggs were removed from Patty's ovaries and, using Scot's sperm, fertilized in a petri dish. The first harvest didn't take. But the second time, doctors transplanted seven fertilized eggs in Patty's uterus.
Implanting a batch of eggs in the uterus is a common though controversial high-tech reproductive practice. The more eggs, the better the odds of at least one surviving. The gamble, of course, is that all could thrive.
"It was a difficult decision to implant all seven eggs," explains Patty. "But since we had been trying for five and a half years without success, we decided to go for it," she says, filling five bottles with milk and five bowls with cereal under a sign in the kitchen that reads, No Whining. "They tell you that you have a better chance of winning the lottery than of all the eggs taking," she laughs.
The Shiers hit the baby jackpot.
* * *
The funny thing is, both Scot and I are only children, and our parents are only children," says Patty, who gave up her 16-year job as a systems analyst for Hewlett-Packard when she went on bedrest at 18 weeks. "We were going to have one kid and see how it went. I wasn't really even a baby person. I wasn't the type to say 'goo and ga' to babies at all."
As if on cue, a few "goo's" and "ga's" fill the air, followed by a few more. Patty takes a deep breath, pads to the nursery and opens the door.
Inside, four little heads peer over four crib rails, and eight little arms reach out to be picked up. Rachel ("the most serious" of the brood) is still asleep. But the babbling of Joshua ("the feistiest") soon wakens her, and by 8:35 all five babies are happily sucking on their bottles.
"The biggest joke is that I could never make it into work by 9, and now I get up at 5," says Patty, who uses her early morning time to take a shower, read the paper and tend to routine chores she can't do when there are five wide-eyed charges demanding her attention.
Like now. She expertly changes five diapers and, one by one, sets their wearers down in an adjacent playroom. Sarah ("the most even-tempered") plays with a plastic doughnut while Hannah ("the most dramatic") inspects a toy camera. Jonathan ("the most exuberant and good-natured") stands at a window gurgling at the family dog, Toby, who is sleeping in the backyard.
When these activities wear thin—and that doesn't take long—Patty pours a handful of Cheerios onto a chair. Like bees to honey, they descend—ten little hands grasping and five little mouths smacking. "You learn a lot of tricks fast," she explains. "Another one is letting them go naked. For some reason, that seems to calm them down."
She picks up Jonathan, who kicks his feet playfully as she places him in a high chair next to his brother. Joshua bangs on his tray but his mother quickly presses his hands together into a praying formation. She does the same to Jonathan, leads them through a prayer, then starts shoveling in the rice cereal, wiping their faces after each bite.
"It may seem fanatical, but I can't let them get too dirty," Patty explains. "With one kid, it's OK to change clothes five times a day—with five kids, you'd spend your life in the laundry room." Even though there are five high chairs, the children eat in pairs so Patty can maintain better control. "I have to be strict," she says. "There's no throwing food or banging, or they get removed from the high chair."
Jonathan giggles, and she leans in toward him. "Jonathan the man," she coos, "eat your yummy breakfast." Then, using those magic mom eyes in the back of her head, she barks, "Sarah Shier, give your sister a turn with that toy."
Patty and Scot limit most of the quints' activity to the "playroom," which does triple duty as a baby dining room and storage area, stacked high with bibs, washcloths, tubs of toys and color-coded notebooks for each child in which detailed information on feeding, sleeping and weight is recorded. "People must look at us and ask, 'How can they cope?' " she says. "Well, it takes a lot of organization."
* * *
In fact, like a drill sergeant at some sort of baby boot camp, Patty keeps the kids on a tight schedule. After the first round of changes and feedings, it's back to bed from 10 to noon, lunch and play from noon to 2, afternoon nap from 2 to 4, then playtime, dinner, bath and bed. "They thrive on structure," she says.
Yet even the most carefully orchestrated military operation can founder on, say, bad weather—or diaper rashes, teething or just plain crankiness. Consider germ warfare. "Once they all had colds at the same time," recalls Patty, shaking her head at the memory. "I cried all day." She admits to occasionally feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and inadequate.
"My biggest problem is that I have to be more flexible," she concedes. "The feeding and changing part is so time-consuming that I have to remember sometimes just to sit down, hang and play."
But Patty knows she can't afford to relax too much. Just getting to the grocery store, where she typically stocks up on $65 worth of milk and $100 worth of diapers on each outing, takes major planning—and help from church volunteers, who watch the kids.
"We used to go through about 50 diapers a day. Now it's down to about 25. We don't change every wet diaper. This," she declares, holding up a plastic diaper, "is a quarter."
Publicity has helped to ease the financial burden. After a spate of news stories about the new quints, companies like Similac (formula), Beechnut and Gerber (food), Huggies and Pampers (diapers), and Peg Perego (strollers, high chairs) donated freebies. J.C. Penney, Macy's and Toys 'R' Us presented gift certificates. Members of the Shiers' church gave clothes and toys. Even strangers pitched in. "In the beginning, we'd get money in the mail from people we didn't know, like $10 from a 75-year-old man in a trailer park," Patty says. "It was kind of weird."
But the generosity began drying up by the time the kids hit their first birthday. Now, Patty has become a "one-woman coupon factory" and an overnight consumer expert. "This is my career now," she explains, gesturing at the packages of formula, boxes of cereal, toys, diapers, clothes and strollers stockpiled in her garage. "I treat this like a business." She begins gathering up jars of baby food while the children nap. "My motto is 'Cheap is good, free is better.' I order in bulk, I redeem box tops, labels, whatever it takes. At the rate I'm going," she laughs, "they'll probably still be eating baby food when they're in junior high."
Television appearances were supposed to help the Shiers gird for college tuitions, which they've calculated will be around $972,000 for five kids in the year 2014. But so far, the only paying gig was a Japanese noodle commercial featuring Sarah and Joshua as punk-rockers.
"Most of our TV appearances were free," Patty says, though the family did get $650 worth of home baby-proofing from The Home and Family Show, and Patty got a free makeover from Carol and Marilyn's Real Friends.
"After all the media attention, you start to think you're hot stuff," she admits. "Then you realize, 'I change poopy diapers for a living and work for five little bosses.' "
When the bosses grow too demanding, Patty can turn to others for help. Though Scot's job keeps him away most of the day, he's quick to pitch in when he gets home. On his weekend errands, he sometimes takes along two or three kids.
"When we first found out, I thought, 'This can't be. This is not reality,'" says Scot, a genial former Air Force Academy cadet. "I tried to picture it—'Let's see, we have four arms and five babies, how will this work?' I envisioned us juggling them like hackey sacks," he laughs. "Which actually isn't that far from the truth.
"It gets crazy sometimes, but it seems more hectic than it actually is," he adds. "And Patty's really amazing at how she's organized things."
During the week, they get a few extra hands from the church brigade. Three volunteers a day come for two-hour shifts to help feed, change or simply cuddle. "Some people say we're lucky to have help, but it's not luck," Patty insists. "It's God's will."
Casual references to religion and spirituality are common in conversations with Patty and Scot, who are devout Christians and members of the Four Square Church of Hermosa Beach. They say their faith helped them cope with the high-risk pregnancy, and now it guides them through the daily challenges of raising five children. They also believe that fertility technology is, in part, divinely inspired.
* * *
Born at 33 weeks (full term is 40), the Shier babies weighed between 3 pounds, 5 ounces and 4 pounds, 8 ounces and were among the healthiest newborn quints on record. Patty credits her 15 weeks of bedrest, robust 4,000 calories-a-day diet and her faith in God.
During pregnancy, Patty and Scot confronted some thorny questions concerning multiple pregnancies and high-tech fertility practices. They learned that the more fetuses there are in a womb, the less chance each one has of surviving. Those that do thrive are twice as likely as singletons to have cerebral palsy and six times more likely to have birth defects. There is also a higher risk to the mother for toxemia, premature labor and ruptured uterine membranes.
For these reasons, many doctors recommend "selective reduction," a process in which a needle with a lethal drug is injected into one or more of the fetuses' hearts. For a couple that has been trying to conceive for years, such a decision can be heart-wrenching. And for those who, like the Shiers, have deep religious convictions, selective reduction may be simply out of the question.
Patty remembers the question hanging in the air at her first ultrasound. "The doctor starts counting and when he gets to four, he says, 'You can't do this,'" she recalls. "Then he saw one more. The nurses left the room. No one was really happy. They tell you that if they all live, they could be deformed, blind, deaf—all kinds of things."
"We thought about it and decided we could live with it if one or more of them left us naturally," says Patty. "But not if it was our decision. I figured, God gave us this blessing. It was not a mistake."
* * *
It's 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and Patty is fading. She's just finished pulling her brood around the block in a giant wagon, and now they're pulling at the legs of her pants. Hannah is teething, so Patty gives her some baby Tylenol and a frozen teething ring. Polly, a church volunteer, quickly distributes four more. "If you give out something, you've gotta give it to everybody," sighs Patty.
Scot calls just before leaving the office. "Hey, can you stop at Ralph's and get some milk?" his wife asks in a weary voice. "Get the double gallon for four twenty. And don't go to Lucky's. It costs more."
An hour later, Scot arrives with the milk and is greeted by five flailing sets of arms and legs. He tosses Jonathan into the air, kisses Hannah, tickles Rachel and throws a ball to Joshua and Sarah.
"How was your day?" he asks Patty, who tries to tell him about calls from The Leeza Show and The Montel Williams Show above the din of giggles and gurgles. She gives up—for now—and watches Scot roll around on the playroom floor.
"Once we decided to have kids, I had this vision of a house filled with all their friends; you know, that 'Mom can Jimmy stay for dinner?' kind of thing. But this?" she asks, gesturing at her husband, who has become a human jungle gym.
"No way," she laughs. "Not in my wildest dreams."
Glynis Costin, MA '84, creative director of Los Angeles magazine, has a single 2-year-old.
