Controversy surrounding recent octuplet birth in California

IVF procedure would cost between $7.5K - $10K and most insurance policies don't cover it. Considering the couple had just lost their home and filed for bankruptcy before conceiving, I don't know how they could afford it.

 

I was about to ask the same thing. wtf?

 

For the record . . . . what exactly has she done wrong?

Is having 6 previous kids wrong?
Wanting more kids wrong?

how about we just see what happens instead of condemning her on pure speculative BS.

Rocket River

 

A few observations:

1. She already was obviously fertile, having 6 kids.
2. She was obviously not in good financial shape, having lost a home and going bankrupt.
3. She sought fertility treatment and subsequently had 8 kids.

Logically speaking, this is not a healthy logic pattern.

Also, it is irresponsible to pay for treatment to have more kids when you are struggling to take care of the 6 you already have.

 

I wonder how much of this goes on.

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Maybe she had it done in Mexico -- I agree with Surfguy something stinks and it's not just the diapers.

 

The only thing that concerns me at all about this is that they're financially cared for and not neglected in their care.

IF that is taken care of....and granted that's in doubt right now as the woman's father is headed off to make some money - but if that's taken care of, I don't care if she goes and has fifty more kids.

Just make sure they're clothed, fed, have a roof over their heads, and don't rob me in twenty years - and I'm right as rain.

If some NEGLECT emerges, social services should be called.

But I don't like the idea that just because some doctors don't like that they helped an already fertile woman, they want to do some sort of intervention.

Question - every doctor I've ever visited for the first time makes me fill out this huge long pain in the ass five page information packet. Did they not ask her any of this?

Another question - when you implant this stuff, etc. - um..pelvic exam, right? You can tell if a woman has had a child. Any gynecologist or obstetrician can tell quite easily. So either this doctor didn't care or is a crackpot.

So if the doctor who did the treatment didn't care, who the hell are these other doctors to swoop in and claim some ethical high ground when no crime was committed, no regulations were violated, etc.?

Again, the financial situation is what concerns me. Other than that, these other "moral high ground" doctors need to shut up.

You don't just decide that someone who wants a lot of children needs psychiatric help. Poor people have huge families all over the world. Let's round em all up and have a big session with Dr. Phil, eh? Get those children taken care of - and if they can't do that, then get CPS on em.

And that's that.

 

More details.

http://www.ktla.com/landing_topstor...ssed-with-Childr=1&blockID=196258&feedID=1198


BELLFLOWER -- The mother of octuplets is "obsessed with children" and wanted "just one more girl," according to her mother.

33-year-old Nadya Suleman's goal in life was to be a mother, her friends and family said. That is why, even with six young children, including 2-year-old twins, she decided to have more embryos transferred in hopes, her mother said Friday, of getting "just one more girl."

"And look what happened. Octuplets. Dear God," Angela Suleman said four days after her daughter became the second person in the U.S. ever to give birth to eight babies at once.

How Did This Happen?

Suleman stressed that her daughter "is not evil, but she is obsessed with children. She loves children, she is very good with children, but obviously she overdid herself."

Angela Suleman said all the children are from the same sperm donor, but she did not identify him. Her daughter is divorced, but Suleman said the ex-husband was not the father.

Suleman said she is caring for her six grandchildren while their mother is in the hospital recovering. She said she had few details about how the octuplets were conceived and did not know the identity of the doctor or the clinic that transferred the frozen embryos into her daughter's uterus. Suleman said it was not Kaiser Permanente, where the babies were born.

Fertility experts have raised concerns about the number of embryos implanted and whether the procedure was within medical guidelines.

"I cannot see circumstances where any reasonable physician would transfer [so many] embryos into a woman under the age of 35 under any circumstance," said Arthur Wisot, a fertility doctor in Redondo Beach and the author of "Conceptions and Misconceptions."

Doctors probably could not deny treatment to a woman simply because she already has children, he said. However, he added, they should have taken steps to make sure she did not have so many babies at once.

Allison Frickert, a friend of Nadya Suleman, said the mother was not seeking potential fame or financial benefit. "There was no overriding situation, other than having more children to love," she said.

"Her whole life, she couldn't wait to be a mom," Frickert said. "That was her No. 1 goal."

Friends and family also reported that Nadya Suleman worked as a psychiatric technician until she was injured on the job. Then she began having children and enrolled in school.

She graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 2006 with a bachelor of science degree in child and adolescent development, school officials said. She returned to pursue a master's in counseling, but last attended in the spring of 2008.

By juggling school and six children, Frickert said, Nadya Suleman proved to be "a lot more capable than the average person in handling stress."

She and her children live with her mother in a 1,550-square-foot home in Whittier, and her father has been working in Iraq as a translator to help support the family.

Court records show the woman's mother Angela Suleman filed for bankruptcy last March, but after she failed to make required payments and appear at a creditors' meeting, the case was dismissed.

She also reported liabilities of $981,371, mostly money owed on two houses she owns in Whittier.

Suleman said Friday that she had withdrawn the filing and paid her debts.

As the media camped outside the house, Angela Suleman said in a telephone interview that she could not explain her daughter's decision.

Nadya Suleman has always loved children, her mother said. Then she sighed. "I wish she would have become a kindergarten teacher."

"It's going to be difficult," she said, adding that her daughter's father is going back to his native Iraq, where neighbors said he works as a contractor, to help support the family.

He told reporters that he is a former Iraqi military man.

Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center physician Harold Henry has confirmed that the mother came there after she was pregnant and was counseled, but chose not to selectively abort some of the fetuses.

"What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed," Suleman said. "That is a very painful thing."

In a statement read by Dr. Karen Maples on Thursday evening, the mother said she understands people are curious and in the future will share details about what she termed a "miraculous experience."

"The babies continue to grow strong every day and make good progress. My family and I are ecstatic about all of their arrivals.

Needless to say, the eighth was a surprise to us all, but a blessing as well," the statement went on to say.

As for the octuplets, doctors say the six boys and two girls continue to do "amazingly well."

Seven of the babies are breathing on their own, and have begun receiving tube-feedings of donated breast milk.

The octuplets were delivered Monday by caesarian section 9 1/2 weeks early.

The babies ranged in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces. They are the second set of surviving octuplets born in the United States.

They are expected to remain hospitalized for several weeks and could face serious developmental delays because of their small size.

 

I completely Agree

Rocket River

 

The moral high grounders (including me) might not be completely in the right but the financial aspects of this and her stupidity are astounding.

There's no way in hell she's going to have the money to raise all of these kids , put all of them through middle school/high school/college , and for that matter FEEDING all of them. What are they going to all eat? Table scraps for 10 years?

And there is something wrong with this. If you have the money, well hell... have 500 kids if you want, but make damn sure you can financially raise them and not put them all in the basement due to only having a 2-3 bedroom house.

 

This is even better. Since these 8 kids were from a sperm donor through a clinic, there isn't even a father in the picture to help support the kids emotionally or financially.

 

And nowhere does it say that anyone other than the GRANDMOTHER - again...not the mother of the children...but the GRANDMOTHER - is having financial difficulties. It says the grandmother was caring for the children while the mother was recovering. That's it. The grandfather is headed back to Iraq to work, presumably to make some money to cover his wife's almost million dollar debt.

This is a woman, the mother....who has a college degree and who in the last year has been pursuing her Masters. And that degree is in child and adolescent development.

Show me where the mother is struggling to either feed, house or in any other way is neglecting these children and I will change my stance.

Otherwise, anyone with a problem with this needs to STFU. Stop telling people how many kids they can have and how to raise them.

Show me they're on welfare. Show me they're a drain on any system in any way with some sort of facts other than assumptions and guesses and we have another story.

All I see is an educated woman who wants a bunch of kids. If something comes out that she can't take care of them? Come back and see me.

 

The fact she is living with her parents in a 1,500 square-foot house which was almost foreclosed on? If she has a college degree, she also probably has a bunch of loans as well. Let's hope she's a really good mother.

 

Count me in as one of the moral high grounders.

Educated or not raising 14 kids, especially 8 that have been born very premature, as a single parent is going to be very tough. Heck I have friends who are single parents who have a hard time raising one.

This women had 6 children already yet was so obsessed with being a mother that she went out and got a sperm donation and IVF to have 8 more. Now that doesn't sound like someone who is mentally and emotionally stable.

 

Well that's fine then. Let's go ahead and raid Amish settlements and let them know how hard it is to raise so many children in one family. Let's do the same with every other person who has 10+ children as well.

OR - Let's wait until there's a reason to do something to this woman other than: "I think it's gonna be too hard for you to raise them"

Doing a pre-emptive strike on someone because of what you think might happen isn't anything I want anything to do with.

And to the earlier person (not the person I'm quoting here), someone paid for those IVF treatments and the implanting of embryos. I'm guess this wasn't pro bono work by these doctors. So she either had the money, or someone did.

Again, if there's a financial issue on the part of the mom and the kids suffer - maybe there's a case to step in. But even then you open up a can of worms that says any poor person who has children should have their kids taken away.

Show me proof of neglect, bottom line. Show me hint of neglect.

All you're giving me is: I know how hard it is to be a single mom, so she's gonna fail.

 

Also, she didn't go out "to have 8 more" according to the quote in the article. She wanted one more girl and all 8 of the embryos implanted took.

 

I would say 88 sq ft of living space per person is neglect. And that includes spaces like the kitchen and bathroom etc. So it's going to be even less.

 

She was already three months pregnant when she went to the clinic -- anyways... I don't mean to sound to harsh - congrats on her fine litter of cubs.

 

This woman obviously has issues.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090131/ap_on_re_us/octuplets

 

Wow, you did the math.

Well you know, the secondary bedrooms in my place are only 10X10 each….or about 100 sq. ft. And each one has one kid sleeping in them. I'm not too far above your 88 sq.ft. threshhold. I hope CPS doesn't come after me.

Your argument is funny, considering a lot of the group homes kids are sent to when taken by CPS bunk many kids in one room.

It also uses the idea that they stay in that place and don't get help from some other outlet. A couple of things, again...

1. The debt belongs to the grandmother, not the mother.

2. The woman's father is going off to make money to help.

3. I want to know how she paid for these treatments. They aren't cheap. The money came from somewhere.

4. It sounds like she was staying with her parents to save money so she could go back to get her Masters. She has skills and has a college degree.

Again - the issue is whether or not they can be taken care of. And, we'll see if that's the case. I still say that as of right now, no one has a leg to stand on. And unless some law was broken in some way, they need to leave her alone. Bottom line.

We don't just take children from people because you don't like how big her family is.