Richard Whiteman said he looked forward to retiring at 61, in just two years.

Wrong.

Whiteman and his wife, Colleen, just gave birth to quadruplets, joining an elite club of multiple-birth parents.

"I was thinking of retiring soon, but the way things look, I'll probably have to keep working for at least a couple more years," Whiteman, an employee of the Burbank Department of Public Works, said Monday.

"But it's worth it," he said. "When I saw those babies, I was ecstatic.

The couple also ha an 11-year-old daughter, Bianca, and is adopting a 1-1/2-year-old boy through the county.

Despite being born two months premature, the newborns - Garrett Baker, Terry Cole, Chad Curtis, and Kathryn Rose - were all in stable condition Monday in the neonatal intensive care unit at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys.

The babies, conceived through in-vitro fertilization and fertility drugs, weigh less than three pounds each and measure less than 15 inches, but doctors and nurses said they are healthy and would grow quickly.

And the mother, a 39-year-old bus driver from Burbank, was doing about as well as could be expected after Thursday's Caesarean delivery.

"We never thought this would happen to us," said the visibly tired Colleen Whiteman, as she prepared to check out of the hospital. "It was tough just to remember all their names at the beginning, and we're taking it day by day now.

"My advice to other multibaby mothers," she said, "is to be prepared because they always come early and they could come at any time."

The birth came with urgency.

Complications in the womb with quadruplet Terry Cole forced doctors to bring the four siblings into the world only seven months into the pregnancy, a common occurrence for a most uncommon type of pregnancy.

"It was tough. Giving birth to my first daughter was a breeze compared to this. But it can be done if you have enough love," Colleen Whiteman said.

Multiple births, while still unusual, are growing nationwide. From 1995 to 1996, multiple births grew by 19% to an all-time high of 6,000, according to the most recent figures from the National Center for Health Statistics in Maryland.

Medical experts say the increase in successful multiple births is due to improved technology, the use of fertility drugs and women increasingly waiting until their late 30s to have children.

All three factors applied to the Whitemans.

There have been relatively few foursomes recently in Los Angeles, with only 11 births of quads in 1992, according to the latest statistics available from the county Department of Health Services.

Hospital staffers said the nonidentical quadruplets were the first even in the hospital's 40-year history.

After trying for months without luck to have another child, the Whitemans finally decided to gamble with the alternative birth method. They had no idea they would hit a grand slam.

"We had the option early in the pregnancy of reducing to just one child," Colleen whiteman said, "but once you see the babies with the ultrasound, that's it, there's no turning back."

With four new mouths to feed - and another on the way - it's full steam ahead for the working mom and dad, who already are planning to add on to the two-bedroom house they keep in Burbank.

The Whitemans said they were anxious to bring their children home.

"I don't completely feel like their mom yet," said colleen Whiteman. "Right after the birth, they rushed them away to intensive care, and I haven't been able to hold them yet."

Doctors and nurses said the happy parents will have their bundles of joy soon enough, but that the babies likely would spend at least two more months in the incubators before being released.

"They'll catch up to norma-size babies in no time," said Belen Papa, a 21-year nursing veteran who is part of the full-time team taking care of the foursome.