Ooooopsie! 0_o
Indeed!
Several of my fellow bloggers and I have decided to crosspost our ideas concerning the woman with six children who just delivered octuplets. I’ve tried to not read their posts because I didn’t want to be influenced, but I did end up getting sneak peeks at Dr. Bate’s and Dr. Rob’s posts. I agree with both of them … although I think I’m approaching the issues from a different perspective.
Please visit their blogs and consider leaving comments … do you agree? Disagree? Why? Let’s have an interesting, civil exchange of ideas concerning this rather controversial event.
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The crossposting group: |
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Dr. Bates from Suture for a Living |
Dr. Rob from Musings of a Distractible Mind |
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Robin from Survive the Journey |
Carrie from NeoNurseChick |
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Also see: |
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Fat Doctor Fat Doctor |
Barbara Duck The Medical Quack |
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Dr. Cris Cuthbertson Scalpel’s Edge |
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I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I’m a very conservative person. We’ve had some really good discussions here in the past about abortion, suicide where Alzheimers is concerned, the ownership of guns … etc. … those of you who know me well won’t be surprised that I would begin by tackling this very ticklish issue before moving on to the others: fetal reduction.
I understand that a reduction might have made the pregnancy “safer” for the mother and the remaining infant(s), but seriously, in what manner was safety even part of the equation from the outset? Things were already so badly out of control once the ova were implanted that there really was no safe path to follow from that point. How many should have been killed? 2? 4? More? And which ones? Would the woman have simply been able to say: “Okies now, leave me one of each, and get rid of the rest”?
When I think of that sort of thing, I can’t help but picture an old farmer drowning the latest batch of kittens because he doesn’t want any more cats in the barn. People today would be outraged if they knew someone was drowning little kittens and puppies … but where’s the outrage when someone terminates the life of the tiniest and most helpless of our own species? They’re genetically unique individuals, who, if allowed to live, could grow into someone’s husband, or wife, or best friend … or even into someone who might have been able to heal some of the world’s problems. I feel that once a human child is conceived due to the actions of other people, he shouldn’t be the one to pay the ultimate price.
My own babies are now adults, and have become my precious friends. I don’t know what I would do without them. I was told to abort two of them, and wouldn’t. I look at them today and I remember what other people wanted me to do, and I can’t even begin to describe what I feel. Just because unborn babies haven’t shown you who they are yet, doesn’t mean that they’re not people.
And in summary: I don’t believe that we can arrogate the right to chose life or death for any other individual – at any stage of life. I know that a lot of you will disagree with me, some of you vehemently, and that’s fine. I don’t want to do your thinking for you, and I will respect your opinion. Please, if you’re going to comment, respect mine.
Funny thing – how a person who is simply trying to express what they feel so often seems to sound as if s/he is preaching when you don’t agree with what is being said, isn’t it?
Now … for the rest of the story …
In the last few days, bits and pieces of information about this woman and her living conditions have leaked out …
She’s unmarried, and lives with her parents in what we’ve been told is a 3 bedroom house. She has six other babies at home, the oldest of which is 7, and the youngest are a pair of twins who were born about two years ago. According to her mother, she’s been obsessed about having babies since she was a teenager, and conceived each of her children through in vitro fertilization. The grandmother told reporters that she was not supportive of what her daughter was doing, and that she had warned her daughter that when she got home from the hospital, “[She was] going to be gone.” 1
Now, seems likely to me that the young woman involved must have been a least a french fry short of a “happy meal” to not only do this sort of thing once, but to continue until she hit a double jackpot at the one-armed-bandit of the obstetrics world! A person can love children and babies to the point of foolishness, but even then – deliberately going on to have more in vitro babies after already having six, seems a bit over the top to me.
We don’t know much about her personally, and if the mother follows through with her decision and leaves, this young woman could be coming home to 14 kids to raise by her lonesome. Everyone who knows her says that she’s a good mother, and that, at least, is a relief, but I honestly don’t see how one person can give 14 children everything they need to be fully nurtured. I just hope for her sake (and her children’s) that she’s able to find a lot of helping hands … because in my mind’s eye, I can just about see the child protection people looking for excuses to “trim back the herd”. I don’t think their lives are going to be all that peachy and rosy … however I do wish them all the absolute best now that the deed has been done. It’s not the children’s fault.
The only individual I’m really perturbed with in this entire drama is the obstetrician who actually gave this woman fertility treatments! I’m assuming that her physician knows her well enough, if s/he’s going to agree to do this, that s/he’s aware that she’s been through successful implantations on 5 previous occasions. This was not a childless couple who were yearning for a baby of their own! This is a single mother … with 6 children at home, all under the age of 10! If s/he is the same one who did the other implantations, then s/he must also have had some idea that the woman would be likely to refuse a reduction if a ridiculous number of the ova actually took.
If the young woman wasn’t responsible enough to know when to quit, I don’t understand why the authority figure didn’t just refuse to be a partner in this insanity! Why wasn’t the obstetrician able to tell her:
“No! Absolutely not! I just can’t do that. It would be dangerous, you could even die and leave 6 children orphaned! That would just be crazy. In fact, here’s a referral to a very nice doctor I know that I’m sure you’ll like very much … ”
Someone in that room should have had the common sense to put on the brakes! It wouldn’t have stopped her from trying other doctors, but each well meant refusal would at least have given her enough time and information to realize that what she wanted to do wasn’t particularly wise.
And finally, I’m FrancoAmerican (of the Canadian persuasion), and I am not personally against having large families. My French Canadian ancestors all had (or tried to have) big families. The child mortality rate was so high that you had to have at least two or three if you wanted one to live into adulthood. The families lived off the land, and the older children helped with chores and taking care of the younger children. Short of some sort of disaster, no one was hungry. Although it wasn’t really that long ago, it was still a different world than the one we live in now. Now families of that size are very rare, and incomprehensibly expensive to maintain. Enabling this single woman to have so many children – and more than half of them in one swoop, is unconscionably reckless. The physician who caused this to actually happen is doing well to stay out of the public eye, I believe, but s/he really should have to do a bit of explaining to the powers that be.
Sean Hannity with Ainsley Earhardt … interesting points which I han’t heard anyplace else …
1) Grandma: Octuplets mom obsessed with having kids
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
As with the farmer — my outrage mostly comes from him not preventing the litter (having the mother cat neutered). I’m big on preventing.
I agree with you, the fertility doctor SHOULD have nipped it in the bud and refused to abet this woman by implanting the eight embryos. Once again PREVENTION.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
My two cents on this in coming out tomorrow.
Embryo reduction is an easy thing to say, but I can’t imagine having to make the decision, particularly if you really like/want children.
My issue is the broader one of how we spend money on fancy schmanzy 21st century medicine that is (IMO) optional, but run out of money to spend on basic simple essential health measures, like primary care and emergency services.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Good post Moof. I certainly agree with you on the reduction issue. I have heard people make remarks that they don’t understand why she didn’t just “get rid” of some of them. I have to admit this sends a chill down my spine. I can’t say for sure, as I certainly have not ever been in that position, but I don’t think I could ever pick and chose between which of my children could live and which ones it might be OK to kill.
I decided not to post because of a few reasons. One I told you about in email, and also, everyday there is more and more information coming out, and so much of it conflicts with what has already been said, that I really don’t know the circumstances about this issue.
One thing that seems constant is that she was implanted. The mother (grandmother to babies) has stated this more than once. I am inclined to believe that portion of the story.
The majority of the blame, in my view, at this point, goes to whatever doctor did such a thing. I don’t for a minute believe this doc. didn’t know her history, or didn’t know she is single and already had more than enough babies at home.
I keep waiting for him to step up to the plate and tell us why he did this. It will come out sooner or later so he might as well get it over with. Since he is the one responsible for it, maybe he can pay child support for the next 18 years for 8 children?
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Great post and great comments. Frankly, I think we all agree more than we disagree.
Cathy, I think you are right about new information coming out each day. It will be interesting to see what the truth really is. I’m hearing contradicting information all over the news. What really bums me, is how the media is hung up on the declaration of bankruptcy in these bad economic times, but fail to state the debt was paid and no bankruptcy was actually filed. A debt of almost a million dollars, I believe. I also noticed they’ve quit talking about Nadya being on welfare because it looks like she actually was not. The third thing is some are talking about Nadya’s parents’ statements being taken out of context due to their ethnicity (thus understanding of what they meant) and just taking partial phrases. Who’d a thunk it? ;)
Moof, I’m conservative, too. Once those embryos are there, how does one choose who lives and who dies? I couldn’t. I suspect that this children will want for little down the road, though. I hope it’s not on the taxpayer’s dime. I do have a problem with that, but now that they are here, I feel they aren’t to be blamed for choices others have made. We need to make sure they are ok. Some of the news stories say the grandfather stated he had a “big house” somewhere. We’ll see if that’s true. There are other, more tin-foil-hat rumors out there that I’m not going to repeat.
Frankly, if they’d move from LA to where I live, they could buy a huge house for the same money the small one they are in costs and the cost-of-living sure is a heck of a lot less. It’s a nice place to live! ;)
Dr. Bates and Dr. Cris, I’m not sure how much information a person has to give a fertility doctor. What if Nadya didn’t tell him/her how many children she had? Is she obligated to do that? Is he obligated to believe the patient? I have questions about that and frankly, about his right to know Nadya’s full history if she chose not to inform him. I realize this is a controversial area. I feel, as a patient, I need to inform my doctor of anything medically that might influence my care, but other than that, the rest of my life is none of his business. (Using masculine pronoun for ease here, not as an inclusive gender.) Nor do I think he wants to be judge and jury over a person’s life. If, as doctors, you have to decide that, then do you want to practice? (I know you do have to in some ways, but hopefully for medical reasons only.) Yes, he should have been careful of the number implanted. Beyond that, how obligated was he to choosing whether he implanted any or not?
Having said that, I’ve read several opinions from various doctors (on their blogs) saying it’s possible she was only implanted with a few, but due to the number of fertility drugs she’s obviously been on to have all the IVF children she has, they could have multiplied. Again, I know the chances of 2-4 multiplying to 8 is astronomical, but someone has to come in that 0.000000000001% sometime, somewhere. (Made-up percentage…just making a point.)
Whew…I could write a book but shall stop here. I am enjoying the blogs, comments, and opinions. Thanks for allowing me to be a part.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Robin, none of the babies are reported to be twins or triplets so it is extremely unlikely that 2 embryos became 8 single embryos.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Moof, I too am conservative like you (As @scanman also pointed out!)and my husband and I just had this conversation about selective reduction. I cannot imagine a doctor allowing 8 embryos to be implanted, but just as is reported in Fat Doctor’s post, I couldn’t imagine not using them either. I believe life begins at conception and do not like the fact that our medical technology has required us to face such issues.
What I most want to know is who is the doctor and WHAT WAS HE/SHE THINKING?!?! And what kind of financial support has she been receiving (if any) from the state in caring for the other children? Does she have any medical insurance of any kind? How did she pay for the IVF treatments? They aren’t cheap! She needs help.
If my back pain patients has to undergo psych eval before consideration of a spinal cord stimulator you would think she would have been asked to undergo a similar evaluation before pursing one IVF treatment much less six of them!
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Dr. Bates, can they tell this young if they are twins/triplets? Wouldn’t it take genetic testing?
I haven’t seen any reports of whether there were any shared chorionic membranes, but I know it’s often very hard to tell by placenta and shared/unshared membranes. Has anyone heard anything on this?
Thanks for answering and for your comment.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Hi Moof,
Great post! I’m glad that we all are cross-posting on this issue! I do think that we all basically are in agreement on the major issues. On the topic of selective or multifetal reduction, I wrote some about it, but plan to write even more on that at a later date. As I said, I’m not one to say what someone should or shouldn’t do, but I wanted the opportunity to present the pros and cons of multifetal reduction!
Honestly, I’d be willing to cut the doctor a small amount of slack if the mother did, indeed, deceive him or her regarding her prior 6 children. HOWEVER, the fact that the doctor proceeded to implant enough embryos to result in 8 babies STILL seems highly unethical!
I’m enjoying our discussion on this!!
Hugz,
Carrie :)