He fainted.
Last week the Davises looked back on a momentous year. It was not as if they hadn't wanted children. In fact, after failing to become pregnant for two years, Debbie consulted a doctor. For five days she took a fertility drug. It worked. "I was told to expect two or three babies," says Debbie. "Then they said it would be four." No one prepared them for quints, much less the changes the quints brought on: 400 changes a week, to be precise.
The economic shock was profound, starting with a $30,000 hospital bill (insurance paid all but $1,000). A few businesses rallied around. Gerber supplies baby food, disposable diapers and clothing. A local diaper service makes daily calls. A dairy sends over milk, and Borden furnishes juice and ice cream. Well-wishers mailed them something over $1,000.
But Debbie, then 20, and Jerry, 21, were disappointed. They had expected more of a fuss to be made over Chanda and Charla (identical twins), Christa (first born), Chelsa (last born) and Casey (the only boy). One reason the reaction was subdued, of course, is that quintuplets are not so rare anymore; a Texas expert claims there are eight sets in the U.S. For the Davises, some early offers of help may have been made for the publicity value. In any case, they never materialized. The Davises were told they qualified for food stamps but refused them. "We won't take any welfare," says Debbie. One evening last February, a friend, Tommye Sartain, volunteered to babysit so Debbie could ride with Jerry on one of his long hauls—her first night out since the quints' birth. Tommye was stunned. "The house they lived in was so small," she says, "that when you put the babies in the living room, they couldn't roll over without jabbing each other in the face. I thought, somebody should really do something."
Tommye tipped a local TV newsman, who interviewed Debbie. "We don't have any place to put their clothes," she told him, "and they've started to crawl all over the house with no playroom to put them in." The Davises' plight drew national attention. "I get to the point where I can't sleep, thinking of what we're going to do," Debbie told other reporters.
As a result, the people of Lewisville, led by the chamber of commerce, launched a Davis Quints Fund. They raised some $30,000 through an auction, a golf tournament and the sale of bumper stickers—"Think Five and Give"—for $1 apiece. A three-bedroom house was rented to Jerry and Debbie for only $100 a month with an anonymous donor picking up the rest. Last week the quints held a first birthday party in an ice cream parlor. Townspeople showered each baby with some 60 gifts, and the fund committee broke ground for a new home on land donated by Hunt Properties of Dallas.
Jerry meanwhile has taken a new job, working the evening shift for a Dallas trucking firm instead of driving cross-country. His pay is a slight improvement over the previous $175 a week. More important, says Debbie, "He's around in the morning when I need him. The babies have gotten to know him and now he knows them."
Debbie had hoped to earn extra money by turning the quints into models. But a model agency approached 54 advertising firms and there were no takers. Although she counts on babysitting help from the ladies of the United Methodist Church, Debbie does all of the mothering herself—she bathes the five of them in the morning, feeds and changes them every two hours, washes up to four loads of clothes a day and keeps an immaculate house. "When I go to bed," she says, "I'm so tired, I just fall asleep."
That raises the question of more children, to which the answer is a composed "No." But "five years from now," Debbie says bravely, "we may change our minds and want to have three more."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
