February 10, 1988
Birth
Holland Landing couple are proud parents of test tube quintuplets
Holland Landing will soon be home to Canada's first-ever test tube quintuplets, born early Saturday morning at a Toronto hospital. Remington, Lance, Wade, William and Maxine were delivered two months premature over a five-minute span that began at 3:59 a.m. Saturday morning to Wayne and May Collier, of Dutch Settlers Crescent in Holland Landing. While they're not the first quintuplets born in Canada they are the first to be conceived by way of the in vitro fertilization process, and theirs was also the largest multiple birth ever at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, according to the public relations officer there. Wendy Lewis said Sunday afternoon that the five babies were listed in stable condition and that doctors were pleased with their progress. The babies will remain on respirators and under close observation for at least another couple of months, she said. Ms. Lewis said that a team of 25 doctors and nurses were involved in the birth, which took place with relative ease, with children arriving about a minute apart. They ranged in size at birth from 805 grams (one pound, 12 ounces) to nearly 1,200 grams (Two pounds, 10 ounces). The public relations officer said that Mrs. Collier, a 33-year-old executive administrative assistant with a law firm, had gone through a carefully monitored fertilization and gestation process under the Toronto East General LIF (Laboratory Initiated Foetal Emplacement) program. She had been in hospital for two months prior to the birth, and anticipated the number of children and their premature arrival. "She actually knew after five weeks of pregnancy she was going to have quintuplets, " Ms. Lewis explained, adding that premature labor "is expected in multiple births." Om fact Mrs. May had gone into labor twice during the week before the actual birth, she said. It will be at least 11 weeks before the quintuplets can come home to father Wayne, 27, an air conditioning and heating apprentice. The couple have no other children. Mrs. Collier couldn't be reached by phone over the weekend, but was slated to appear at a press conference in Toronto sometime Monday.