Mother of octuplets reveals her joy ... but there's no sign of the father

[bijou]

The mother who gave birth to octuplets  - giving her a grand total of 14 children - has said her babies are 'miraculous'.

But as more details emerged about her massive family, neighbours raised questions over whether her children will have a father in their lives at all.

The woman's mother also confirmed the octuplets were indeed the result of fertility treatment - and said her daughter had had the opportunity to abort one or more of the foetuses, as is common with multiple pregnancies, but turned it down.

It was also revealed that the woman's father - a contractor - may be forced to return to work in Iraq to help support his 14 grandchildren.

Residents in the quiet LA cul-de-sac where the unidentified mother lives said they have never seen the woman –  who they said looks to be Hispanic - with anyone who looked like a boyfriend or husband.

A neighbour who gave her name only as Verda said: 'I don’t think she is married or has a partner.

'The only male I’ve seen over there in the two years or so she has lived there  is her father, who must be in his 60s.' ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1131343/My-miracle-babies-Mother-octuplets-reveals-joy---theres-sign-father.html

I do hope the taxpayer isn't going to pick up the bill for this, why would any doctor give a woman with six children fertility treatment. It is not as if the treatment is without risks.

[Flame]

Of course the taxpayers are going to pick up the tab....and her parents should be slapped for enabling her!

[JohnnyReb]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1131343/My-miracle-babies-Mother-octuplets-reveals-joy---theres-sign-father.html

I do hope the taxpayer isn't going to pick up the bill for this, why would any doctor give a woman with six children fertility treatment. It is not as if the treatment is without risks.

The doctor should lose his license.........6 kids and no husband ?????????

WTH was he thinking.........must be another damn liberal.

[formerlurker]

Under U.S. guidelines, doctors would normally not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33.

Multiple births can be dangerous for babies and their mother, and in some cases may result in lasting health problems. However, in cases where a woman insists on having multiple births, there's a limit to a doctor's role.

Eight embryos implanted in a 33 year old woman who has no issues with carrying a fetus to term is gross incompetence and malpractice.   

This is so irresponsible it makes my blood just boil.   

[debk]

When I heard earlier this morning on the Today show, that this woman already had 6 kids, I was appalled to think that any reputable OB/GYN would do en vitro...let alone 8 fertilized eggs.

Except for money.

The question is....just who all is making money out of this?

The doctor makes a chunk load. en vitro is in excess of $10,000 cold hard cash....rarely paid by insurance. So that means the doctor was paid.

I am curious to his ethnic background.

I can understand the mother not wanting to pick which embryos to "kill off"....I would have trouble making that decision also.

What I can't understand...is any sane woman who has 6 kids....going through en vitro to have more!!!!

So, back to the question of why?

Unfortunately....my cynical mind....comes up with "who is paying her?"

Is she being paid to be a guinea pig for how many live births a woman can have at one time? and the doctor is doing a research paper on her and paying for the "use" of her body?

Or is she selling the babies? A type of surrogate mother? Depending on the circumstances of surrogacy....it may not be objectionable. Selling the babies? .....makes my skin crawl.

Yesterday on The View, Sheri Shephard was saying that her son was born at 24 weeks....his hospital bill was ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!! She said that insurance paid almost all of it.

If one child in the NICU could cost this much.....how much would EIGHT cost? Even though they are all breathing on their own...(which I somehow don't believe a 1lb 2oz'er is doing) they are still in the NICU and will be for several weeks.

There are an incredible amount of "why's" to this situation, that I wonder if we will ever find out the true answers. I do find it odd...that she and her identity ....are being kept "secret".



edited for poor spelling.....

[bijou]

CBS News has learned that the family of the octuplets born this week outside Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy and abandoned a home a little over a year-and-a-half ago.

Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman says the mother is in her mid-thirties and lives with her parents.

There's been no mention of the octuplets' father, Kauffman observes.

The grandfather, she adds, is apparently going to head back to his native Iraq to earn money for the growing family. He told CBS News he's a former Iraqi military man.

Kauffman reported Thursday, and the octuplets' maternal grandmother now confirms to the Los Angeles Times, that the babies' mother already had six young children.

And a family acquaintance had told Kauffman that two of the six other kids are twins, and the six range in age from about two to about seven.

The mother's name is still being kept under wraps.

But her mother, Angela Suleman, also tells the newspaper her daughter conceived the octuplets through a fertility program.
...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/30/earlyshow/health/main4764432.shtml

[Wineslob]

What I can't understand...is any sane woman who has 6 kids....going through invetro to have more!!!!

So, back to the question of why?

Welfare checks.

[debk]

Welfare checks.

I think there's a limit to the number of kids.....I seem to remember the number getting lowered several years ago.

I used to do voluteer work teaching parenting classes to unwed mothers, and then was on the board of executives for a home for unwed mothers, and I remember it being discussed. I don't remember what the law changed to though. (crs?  )

[formerlurker]

Tucker, who has a doctorate in reproductive physiology, says it's "absolutely" possible the octuplets' mother got pregnant with them by taking fertility drugs on her own without the help of a clinic, "and that seemed the most plausible scenario, simply because the profession, we're policed by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, has focused so minutely on the fact that we need to reduce the number of embryos that we transfer. We really are all about seeking the one, the one embryo that's going to make the healthy, single-born baby.

Ah, that is most likely what occured.   She probably took chlomid, which unfortunately is easy to obtain (gynecologists should be banned from Rx'ing it).  Had she actually undergone IVF treatment, there isn't an RE in the U.S. that would have transplanted 8 healthly embryos into a woman who has had 5 full term pregnancies, one of which a multiples.   

Just disgusting. 

       

[Miss Mia]

Ah, that is most likely what occured.   She probably took chlomid, which unfortunately is easy to obtain (gynecologists should be banned from Rx'ing it).  Had she actually undergone IVF treatment, there isn't an RE in the U.S. that would have transplanted 8 healthly embryos into a woman who has had 5 full term pregnancies, one of which a multiples.   

Just disgusting. 

       

From what I've read on DU discussing this, that is what most likely happened.  Or the doctor told her that there were too many eggs released and to not have sex and she did anyways. 

I just don't understand how a woman with 6 kids would feel the need to go through fertility treatments in order to have a 7th. 

[Atomic Lib Smasher]

[debk]

 
Ah, that is most likely what occurred.   She probably took chlomid, which unfortunately is easy to obtain (gynecologists should be banned from Rx'ing it).  Had she actually undergone IVF treatment, there isn't an RE in the U.S. that would have transplanted 8 healthly embryos into a woman who has had 5 full term pregnancies, one of which a multiples.   

Just disgusting. 

       

According to the news conference I saw this morning with the doctors who delivered and the pediatrician.....she had en vitro and knew there was a abnormal amount of viable fetuses.




edit for spelling..

[Miss Mia]

According to the news conference I saw this morning with the doctors who delivered and the pediatrician.....she had invetro and knew there was a abnormal amount of viable fetuses.

That's just so wrong.  The doctor should have never implanted that many embryos. 

[Ptarmigan]

If these babies don't have the father, that's not good. Also, humans are not meant to give birth to eight babies. Eight is too much. Having 14 children is going to be burdensome.

[formerlurker]

According to the news conference I saw this morning with the doctors who delivered and the pediatrician.....she had en vitro and knew there was a abnormal amount of viable fetuses.




edit for spelling..

The only issue I can think of that would require her to have invitro is she had her tubes tied, or her partner had sperm issues which required ICSI.   

The RE who transferred 8 viable embryos needs to get his license revoked.     She should release the clinic's name.   

However irresponsible she was in agreeing to the transfer, she did extremely well delivering at 32 weeks -- extremely well.  She must have received top notch prenatal care.    The babies are doing fantastic also.     

There is a story behind this and given the grandfather's statements to the press, we may never know what that is.   Just a very strange story.   

[Miss Mia]

The only issue I can think of that would require her to have invitro is she had her tubes tied, or her partner had sperm issues which required ICSI.   

The RE who transferred 8 viable embryos needs to get his license revoked.     She should release the clinic's name.   

However irresponsible she was in agreeing to the transfer, she did extremely well delivering at 32 weeks -- extremely well.  She must have received top notch prenatal care.    The babies are doing fantastic also.     

There is a story behind this and given the grandfather's statements to the press, we may never know what that is.   Just a very strange story.   

There has been no mention of a father.  The neighbors said she was a single mother.  Possibly she used a sperm donor.  Seems strange that someone that already had 6 kids would then undergo fertility treatments (and that's 6 kids under the age of 7).  This whole thing is strange.   

[formerlurker]

There has been no mention of a father.  The neighbors said she was a single mother.  Possibly she used a sperm donor.  Seems strange that someone that already had 6 kids would then undergo fertility treatments (and that's 6 kids under the age of 7).  This whole thing is strange.   

She could have been a surrogate too.   If so she has quite the payday coming her way. 

[Miss Mia]

Here's another story

Linky
-snip-
But the grandfather warned that media may have a tougher time finding the family after the babies are released from the hospital.

"We have a huge house, not here," said the man, who would only identify himself as Ed. "You are never going to know where it is."

Suleman said her daughter had embryos implanted last year, and after finding out she was pregnant with multiple babies was given the option by doctors of selectively reducing the number of embryos. The woman declined.

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

Dr. Harold Henry said the woman was already pregnant when she came to Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, and she was counseled on the option of aborting some of the fetuses. Doctors had been expecting only seven babies, but an eighth was born in the cesarean delivery.

-snip-

Well, I hope they do have a bigger house, they'll need it.  But that's just strange.  I wonder if she took the fertility treatment somewhere else, maybe outside the US.  I have a hard time imagining a doctor here in the US implanting 8 embryos, knowing the risk to both the mother and the babies. 

[Chris_]

That's just so wrong.  The doctor should have never implanted that many embryos. 

I heard from a very influential expert in assisted reproduction today who said that this was malpractice AND a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

[formerlurker]

I heard from a very influential expert in assisted reproduction today who said that this was malpractice AND a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Reproductive medicine is not regulated, however it could be argued that he/she risked the life of the mother by making the transfer.   

[formerlurker]

Dr. Harold Henry said the woman was already pregnant when she came to Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, and she was counseled on the option of aborting some of the fetuses. Doctors had been expecting only seven babies, but an eighth was born in the cesarean delivery.

See this is the part that is confusing.   Had she indeed undergone IVF tx, she would have been followed by an RE until she was released to an OB/GYN, and in her case, a perinatologist.   She wouldn't have just shown up at an OB's office.    Kaiser would have received the RE's records -- it would have been a transfer of a patient.    She would have received counseling on selective reduction at 4-5 weeks when the RE did her first transvaginal u/s.   

This article makes it sound like she just showed up pregnant at Kaiser.     She must have had this done in Mexico, or she took chlomid.    No way she did IVF with a reputable RE in the United States.   

[Miss Mia]

See this is the part that is confusing.   Had she indeed undergone IVF tx, she would have been followed by an RE until she was released to an OB/GYN, and in her case, a perinatologist.   She wouldn't have just shown up at an OB's office.    Kaiser would have received the RE's records -- it would have been a transfer of a patient.    She would have received counseling on selective reduction at 4-5 weeks when the RE did her first transvaginal u/s.   

This article makes it sound like she just showed up pregnant at Kaiser.     She must have had this done in Mexico, or she took chlomid.    No way she did IVF with a reputable RE in the United States.   

I'm thinking the same.

Reproductive medicine is not regulated, however it could be argued that he/she risked the life of the mother by making the transfer.  

Yes, transferring that many embryos isn't right.  Shouldn't a reputable doctor only be implanting 2 or 3 max, especially when selective reduction isn't an option?

[Tess Anderson]

Hell if I know - I have heard that there's rumours that the mother herself worked in an infertility clinic.

This story does kind of suck. She's NOT married, she's around 35, she lives with her parents and her other six children and the grandfather sometimes travels to his native Iraq to work. But what really bothers me is that this family has filed for bankruptcy recently and abandonded a house they had defalted on.

[formerlurker]

Yes, transferring that many embryos isn't right.  Shouldn't a reputable doctor only be implanting 2 or 3 max, especially when selective reduction isn't an option?

I have seen women with significant uterine lining issues, poor embryo quality, and age factor (over 40) transfer 6 or so embryos with the hope that one will take.     They get pretty extensive counseling prior to transfer what the risks are. 

I did infertility tx for close to 13 years.    I transferred three perfect blastocysts which yielded a singleton live birth (our oldest son).   The next transfers the RE would only transfer two blasts as I had a successful pregnancy and the risk was too great.  That didn't work.  On  the last transfer I talked them into transferring three.   They did, and we had twins.   

Eight would never happen with a reputable RE -- NEVER.   

[Miss Mia]

I have seen women with significant uterine lining issues, poor embryo quality, and age factor (over 40) transfer 6 or so embryos with the hope that one will take.     They get pretty extensive counseling prior to transfer what the risks are. 

I did infertility tx for close to 13 years.    I transferred three perfect blastocysts which yielded a singleton live birth (our oldest son).   The next transfers the RE would only transfer two blasts as I had a successful pregnancy and the risk was too great.  That didn't work.  On  the last transfer I talked them into transferring three.   They did, and we had twins.   

Eight would never happen with a reputable RE -- NEVER.   

Thanks for the insight.