First In-Vitro Quintuplets Add Up To Challenge For 13-Member Family

DAVISBURG, Mich. - Raising the first quintuplets conceived through in-vitro fertilization is testing the patience of Michele and Raymond L'Esperance - their patience for bureaucratic delays, that is.

Besides the 2 1/2-year-old quints, the L'Esperances have three sons from previous marriages and now are caring for three nieces at their home about 30 miles north of Detroit. That's 11 kids, if you're counting.

It hasn't been easy. Food costs $350 weekly, the telephone was briefly cut off last month for non-payment, the couple worried their electricity was next, and handed their limousine, the only vehicle that could carry all the kids, back to the finance company. He is 29 and makes $26,000 yearly as a jail guard; she is 36 and works at a shelter for battered women.

Michele L'Esperance said she and her husband can care for their children but need a foster-home license - and the increased state aid it would bring - to care for her sister's brood.

Oakland County Probate Judge Barry Grant was angered at a recent hearing on the license requested five weeks ago. He ordered the state Department of Social Services to explain why it hasn't acted on the couple's request to waive rules that normally exclude a family with eight or more children from being a foster home.

``This is government bureaucracy at its worst,'' Grant said.

Chuck Peller, a department spokesman, said the foster-home license decision was delayed because the family only recently filled out needed paperwork.

As foster parents, the L'Esperances would receive about $1,000 monthly for their nieces rather than $295 they now get.

The couple apparently once expected that commercial endorsements would offset the sudden costs of Erica, Veronica, Danielle, Alexandria and Raymond Jr., born 10 weeks premature in January 1988.

``No endorsements occurred. Multiple births had become a lot more common,'' said attorney Thomas Plunkett, who was hired to negotiate contracts. Even being the country's first quints conceived through in-vitro fertilization didn't land offers, he said.

Donations were made - limousine rides from the hospital, cribs, clothing and toys. And Gerber Products Co. pays for food, clothes or other company items the family uses. It will do the same for any quints, company spokesman James Lovejoy said.

Because of its offer for multiple births, Gerber keeps records. They show U.S. multiple births - which often result from the use of fertility drugs - have increased 128 percent since 1983. Last year, the company had four sets of quints, 37 sets of quadruplets and 402 sets of triplets in its free product program, Lovejoy said.

``Two-and-a-half? It gets worse. This is the easy time. It gets tough,'' said Peggy Jo Kienast of Far Hills, N.J., whose 20-year-old quints are in college.

The L'Esperances married in 1986, using $4,000 for in-vitro fertilization rather than holding a fancy wedding.