Surrogate mom delivers quints for free

A surrogate mother in Arizona has declined a fee of $15,000 US after giving birth to five boys, saying the quintuplets' parents will need the money to raise their new family.

Teresa Anderson, 25, gave birth to the boys by caesarean section Tuesday on behalf of a childless couple she had met after contacting them through a surrogacy website to offer her services.

She had carried the babies for 33 weeks. A full-term pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

Luisa Gonzalez and Enrique Moreno now have five sons to raise: Enrique, Jorge, Gabriel, Javier and Victor.

Doctors at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center say Javier, the smallest baby with a birth weight of 3 pounds 7 ounces, has only a one-in-three chance of survival because of a heart defect. He faces surgery in the weeks ahead.

• INDEPTH: CBC Witness page on multiple births

Anderson is married with two children of her own.

She had planned to use the $15,000 fee for bearing the babies to take nursing courses, but she decided to waive the payment after growing close to Gonzalez and Moreno during the pregnancy.

Moreno, a landscaper, and Gonzalez, a homemaker, had tried to have a baby for more than 10 years.

Doctors placed five fertilized embryos in Anderson's womb to boost the chance that one would result in a child.

All five embryos took hold, however.

That makes the boys fraternal quintuplets instead of identical ones, which should help their new parents tell them apart as they grow older.