KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: First, "CNN 20," today: a blessing five times over.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Their doctor calls it a miracle: the birth of the nation's first test tube quintuplets. The four girls and one boy were delivered by caesarean section, ranging in weight from just under two pounds to a little over three pounds.</s>RAY L'ESPERANCE, FATHER OF QUINTUPLETS: I'm thinking to myself, it can't be five babies, but that's what it turned out to be. It was pretty shocking.</s>DR. LENNY HUTTON, WILLIAM BEAUMONT HOSPITAL: We had rehearsed the delivery in that this was the first set of in vetro fertilization quintuplets. We wanted everything to go right. We had 40 people in the delivery room each doing their job. It was choreographed like a ballet, and it worked perfectly.</s>MICHELE L'ESPERANCE, MOTHER OF QUINTUPLETS: I'm excited. I'm a nervous wreck, I'm sore.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Seven of the mother's eggs were taken from her ovaries and fertilized with her husband's sperm in a laboratory dish and then implanted in her womb. Five of the embryos survived.</s>HUTTON: We anticipate that these children will grow up and live a normal, happy healthy life.</s>R. L'ESPERANCE: Obviously, the first two, three years were very hectic, very -- I think we suffered a lot of sleep deprivation, but it was certainly worth it, and they're very good kids, very well-behaved kids. They pretty much live a normal life with us.</s>M. L'ESPERANCE: They're healthy, they're happy, they're smart, and we've been blessed.
CNN 20: First Test Tube Quintuplets, January 11, 1988