On the Octuplets [orichalcum]

Some of you may have seen the news that a California woman had octuplets last week. That's not what's currently shocking me.

First, there was the news that she plans to breastfeed all eight. I have mixed feelings about this, because on one level, Yay Breastfeeding! Go her! On another level...we've only got two breasts, and there's some good reason for that. Someone calculated out that if you allow for the standard 10 feedings per day for newborns of 15 minutes each, for eight babies that works out to 35 hours a day of breastfeeding. I can tell you that with only one kid, newborn breastfeeding felt like a major hobby or part-time job.

And now it's been revealed that the mother in question has six other kids between the ages of 2 and 7 - a 7 year old, a 6 year old, a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and 2-year-old twins, and does not live with the father of her kids.

This is the point where I find it really hard not to be judgmental. Fertility drugs are a wonderful scientific development and, when used correctly, can allow caring, thoughtful, dedicated people to become awesome parents. I'm really glad they exist and grateful for how many people I know they've helped.

But there's pretty much no way you get octuplets without fertility drugs. And when you've got 6 kids under the age of 7, I'm sorry, but I think you've pretty much been blessed already. At that point, it's hard to see how using what must have been high levels of fertility drugs and keeping all the fetuses seems remarkably irresponsible as a parent to both your existing kids and to the potential ones.

It's hard not to try and imagine what's going on inside her head, but I respect her desire for anonymity. Still - am I irrational to be viewing this as a case of negligent parenting?

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No, you're not irrational. Octuplets alone means someone wasn't doing their job right, but with six other children?

Something really weird is going on here.

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I don't see how it's physically possible for one woman to bring eight babies to viability biologically. I mean, just... space-wise.

Well, they're all about 1 pound each. I had 1 8-pound baby. Thus I can theorize that it would be possible to have 8 1-pound babies, although..yeah. And they were barely at the viability point when she delivered - very premature.

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You are not irrational at all, and not alone in being shocked. I'm still boggling at this, and just have no idea how it could happen.

I read that the babies are using donated breastmilk. Maybe she's also breastfeeding, on top of that, but I can't imagine that it's physically possible for one mother to breastfeed 8 babies.

And yeah. If you already have six kids, that's not the time to be hitting the fertility drugs.

I think they're currently using donated breastmilk because she's still recovering, which makes perfect sense.

8 babies is a litter. And a big litter than that. Primates don't do big litters.

If we did, I could say something like, "SUCK MY LOWER LEFT TIT!" when people piss me off.

You could say that anyway, and see if anyone catches on. I think it's funny.

I actually used it at a Quest game when I was in a party of cat-people (jaguar-people, really). It got a good reaction.

But it is a good idea to use it again and see if anyone notices.

Yes, please give it a try, because it is cracking me up.

I have to say, this makes me think of nothing so much as those cat-hoarders who end up endangering all their cats. And that's just not an image I want for babies. ya know?

You have hit the nail right on the head! "Human cat lady" probably sums it up. The irresponsibility of both the mother and the doctor are both pretty horrifying, since (1) all the children, both new and old, are going to suffer for it a variety of ways, and (2) society as a whole is going to have to pay for it, too.

Grrr...I just have to say, smart of them to not release personal information on the family. They would probably be heaped with more abuse than congratulations.

Basically that woman had no fertility problems (6 kids!), but likely did something to increase the chances of conception. And then made a specific choice that would likely result in at least half of the babies having permanent disabilities. This is not how one acts as a responsible human being. If there was a doctor involved in there, I hope they are closely investigated.

Oh good grief. We had a very hectic week at work, so I only briefly heard about the birth in little snippets on the radio news.

And I guess I just assumed that we were talking about an infertile couple who had no other kids. I had no idea this would now make 14 kids for a single mother. That alone is enough to make me wonder WTF?

However, if she paid for fertility treatments - and yeah, I agree octuplets are not really likely otherwise - then she may be financially able to care for the entire bunch.

But, good grief. . .

So did I, originally, and in that circumstance, I can respect people not wanting to do selective reduction, which is a really hard choice, even if it's the medically recommended thing to do. But this wasn't the one chance at a kid for an infertile couple - this is a woman who had lots of kids and then chose to implant 8 more!

She didn't use drugs -- apparently she had 8 embryos implanted. And they all took.

And apparently implanting 8 embryos is, shall we say, not standard procedure.

And oh, hey look, financial troubles too!

I think this is messed up. I think jendaviswilson is right, I too believe there should be some investigation of the process here. People have the right to have children, but if they're going to do it on this scale I think there's got to be a minimum level of responsibility, and I think this is below it. If you should have to prove you're not crazy to get your tubes tied, you'd darn well better prove it before you use doctors to get pregnant.

OK, that's getting into the serious medical malpractice category, and makes me wonder if this woman wanted the fame or world record or whatever. I don't know of any reputable fertility doctor who would implant more than 4, and that in really rare circumstances...

She had to have doctor-shopped, in order to accomplish this. I mean, unmarried women often have to doctor-shop to get tubal ligations if they're not of a certain age, and it's _ethical_ to do that procedure with good counseling about sterilization regret and good consent forms.

Yes, yes, and yes, this is a messed up situation.

I'd be more comfortable if the condemnations were for the more specific reasons of medical malpractice.

Each of my maternal great-grandma's had 15 kids.
But those kids came over 20 years, and were thus able to help each other.

There are many, many very good single-parent families. It's almost the norm in some communities and can be very good. In fact, it can be better than the alternative.

It is irresponsible to implant so many embryos, because of the chances of problems- and in the UK I recall the guideline is about 2 or 3 embryos per implantation.

That said, the UK has universal health system, which reduces patient autonomy but takes personal wealth out of health care. If it doesn't work, the client just tries again, and doesn't have to face a huge bill for "no gain."

It's also irresponsible to implant a whole lot and plan to ablate if too many "take"- because you can't dictate to the woman and she may lie about her intent.

The reasons for high implantations are because a large number of such artificially introduced embryos usually don't take. The procedure alone is expensive and stressful, and people like to reduce that.

We don't know what she told the doctors and we know they can't really check a lot of details. I think this is a clear case of American Autonomy Preference V. sound practice, not a lesson in the horrors of single moms or premature, multiple births.

Thanks for articulating this so well. I was a little disturbed by the tone of the comments.

On the one hand, I agree that there were some serious problems with the decision making, but I think most of the comments felt a little off.

Your comments sum up the ethics issues well.

I would agree that there's a huge difference between 15 kids over 20 years and 14 kids in 7 years, 8 all at once and with likely health issues.

One of the reasons large numbers of embryos don't normally take is that they're being implanted in women who have fertility issues. This is clearly not the case for this woman, and I have to assume that a doctor, even if she lied, would be able to tell she had given birth before.

I do place a lot of blame on irresponsible doctors here, but I also think that the mother is not being responsible towards her existing kids. Not because she's single - that and her financial state are only relevant because they will make the logistics more difficult. Yes, there are lots of great single-parent families, but having more people to help does make things easier. Again, I'd feel differently if she had a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old eager to help.
But in her current situation, it's simply difficult for me to imagine how each of her kids, let alone the newborns, will receive an appropriate amount of care and attention. I'm worried about the 3-year-old and the 2-year-old twins, who all ought to be getting a lot of individual stimulation.

Absolutely, she has autonomy. Mostly, I think that what she doesn't deserve is the positive attention and celebration often showered on parents of large amounts of multiples - the reality shows and free diapers and so forth.

Referring to your interesting point about the desire to implant extra embryos to make sure one takes, lest there be "no gain" - that totally makes sense to me in the circumstance of a woman where this is potentially her only chance to have a biological child. I respect and honor that. I think that what a lot of the other comments are getting at is that it seems like there should be less, not more flexibility when dealing with situations where it's not an all-or-nothing kind of deal.

If none of the embryos had implanted successfully in this case, what would have been the result? She'd still have 6 kids, and every chance that she could conceive another one naturally on her own - especially if she waited a little longer after the birth of her last kids. (If her twins are currently 2, then she presumably had the embryos implanted when they were 1 or barely 2. Furthermore, she's presumptively been pregnant or nursing for the entire last seven years. )

I think perhaps there's the idea that much as we respect autonomy, given the enormous burden placed on the health care system by these kinds of pregnancies, they should perhaps be reserved for people who don't have easier, more conventional options.

In some ways this reminds me of the argument over things like organ transplants, where there's the ethical question of whether to prioritize the young and otherwise healthy potential recipients over the elderly and sicker recipients. Barring special circumstances, I'm fine from an ethical perspective in restricting IVF to folks with, say, 2 or fewer children. Of course, I believe in a tightly managed national health care system too.

orichalcum

On the Octuplets

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I am not ashamed of being judgmental!

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14 kids alone is not a problem, I suggest having no dad is also not automatically a problem

Re: 14 kids alone is not a problem, I suggest having no dad is also not automatically a problem

Re: 14 kids alone is not a problem, I suggest having no dad is also not automatically a problem

Re: 14 kids alone is not a problem, I suggest having no dad is also not automatically a problem

April