<p>They have said in media reports that his technique didn’t work as well as he had suggested it did - hence, placing more embryos in to make them stick. </p>
<p>Nadya has said that she used the same exact multi embryo (more than 6 at one time) procedure before and she was only impregnated with twins. </p>
<p>Doctor definitely has an agenda. A creepy one.</p>
<p>Cartera, I actually think all of the kids should be removed from the home. I don’t think it could be done, but I think it should.</p>
<p>I too think that the kids will be better off in a sane place that does not resemble a volunteer-run orphanage (which is what this woman’s house will be). The older kids should be left with the grandma if she is OK with providing care for them.</p>
<p>“I think Ms. Suleiman is deeply disturbed, but if she were my neighbor, I’d try my best to help.”</p>
<p>I think that the best help her kids can get is being taken away by protective services and being allowed to be adopted by people with the good sense and resources that would help the kids flourish.</p>
<p>"My across the street neighbor has quads and two older kids. She’s been on Super Nanny (the cop with anger management issues) "</p>
<p>Too bad that she still has her kids. Since it seems her major parenting difficulties are resistant to improvement, it does seem that having others raise her kids may be best for the children. No matter how caring and supportive neighbors may be, they can’t ameliorate all of the problems the kids face by being with a mother with anger control issues.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with post 616 and 765, and continue to follow this story with fascination. There seems absolutely no good way out of a horrific situation but how did she get here? If reports are true, this woman would have had no children without medical intervention. I really can’t fathom how she afforded all that IVF (even with disability payments) or why it was provided to her even if she could pay. There seems a consensus the doctor was irresponsible. Do her parents share any blame in not doing more to prevent so many pregnancies? To be fair, she really didn’t wake up one day and come up with a plan to produce octuplets… that is just too huge a statistical improbability. Multiple births are one thing that can catch even the most intelligent, organized, responsible, goal setting woman by surprise. And unprepared. You can argue it was irresponsible not to terminate but I really don’t want to go there. She has my sympathy. All CA citizens have more of my sympathy, but the children are the real victims. What will happen now? The state can raise the children, the state can provide her support to raise them, or media can pay her to raise them. It is impossible to force someone to adopt out their children (thank goodness!!!) Why should they be in foster care if their mother is willing to care for them (sympathetic pov) and if she will insist on being involved and interfering if they are removed from her care (outraged pov)? Best case scenario, imho, is appointing a guardian for the children to supervise essentially a small state run childcare center including the mother in their care to the best of her ability, with no media exploitation of any of the 14 children allowed. In this scenario, maybe the mom should have to pay any future profits from her story to the state. I can’t wait to see how the state handles it when the babies are ready to be released. And I really hope these children don’t end up a reality show. They just don’t deserve that.</p>
<p>“It is impossible to force someone to adopt out their children (thank goodness!!!)”</p>
<p>On the contrary, it is possible to force a parent to relinquish children for adoption, but it generally takes a long time. If children are in foster care for years, and the parent doesn’t show progress towards becoming fit, adoption proceedings may follow.</p>
<p>“To be fair, she really didn’t wake up one day and come up with a plan to produce octuplets… that is just too huge a statistical improbability.”</p>
<p>Huh? If you implant 6+ healthy embryos in a young woman with several successful pregnancies, quints or higher are quite likely indeed. The improbable part is that they were all born alive, with a shot at surviving infancy…but producing healthy babies was clearly not the goal of anyone involved here.</p>
<p>“Huh? If you implant 6+ healthy embryos in a young woman with several successful pregnancies, quints or higher are quite likely indeed.”</p>
<p>Hannah, perhaps you are correct. I’m rethinking what I wrote and it is my understanding that higher-order multiples are increasing due to various infertility treatments but much more often with other treatments than IVF which has overall such an abysmal success rate. Does anyone know about higher order multiple stats and IVF?</p>
<p>But do you blame her for those 6+ embryos?</p>
<p>I wonder how the babies are doing. Unfortunately the Suleman family website has no update on any of the babies and only two clickable links- one to leave a comment and one to make a donation (credit cards accepted).</p>
<p>Low birth weight babies commonly have a host of medical needs even when they are ready for discharge. I am sure there are others who can better describe their post-partum risks, but many may be discharged on oxygen or monitors, may have special diets, etc etc etc. California will not likely permit these children to be discharged to a home that cannot adequately care for them and that might put them at risk for neglect. This should be interesting…</p>
<p>I have no idea if any of the information on wikipedia is accurate, but I found this interesting
</p>
<p>So, according to wiki, none of the babies require vents and are breathing on their own. Thats great news. However, I imagine they are still on monitors for their breathing. Dont know if/when any are able to suckle adequately, are swallowing or are able to digest or tolerate formula or milk by mouth.</p>
<p>“But do you blame her for those 6+ embryos?”</p>
<p>Yes. The doctor’s responsible for what he did, and she’s responsible for what she did.</p>
<p>Someone asked upthread at what point we begin to blame a mentally ill person for their behavior (morally, not legally). That would be the point at which they recklessly endanger innocent people. A lot of people have been speculating that she’s got Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have no idea if that’s true, but if it is, such personality disorders do not absolve anyone of moral responsibility for the damage they cause to others. If a person is psychotic, and literally can’t distinguish reality from delusion, that may be a different story. YMMV.</p>
<p>Hannah: imho it would be a great idea, as part of sex education, if teenage girls were taught not only about std prevention and birth control but also asked to explore prenatal dilemmas (what testing is available and consequences, etc) infertility dilemmas (including potential for higher order multiples and consequences, etc) and childbirth choices and so on and on while it is still a theoretical question and easier to consider rationally. Mainly imho we want to trust our doctors to decide what is best for us. I feel we should all be taking more responsibility for our reproductive choices but that is not encouraged by society – again jmho.</p>
<p>^^^ agreed, alh, but with much of sex ed being controversal laready, I can only imagine what will happen if we try to add in the impact of genetic testing, reducing multiple pregnancies to decrease risk, etc. While I am all for it, I can only imagine the controversy it’d bring, especially down here in the south. Yikes!</p>
<p>And I also agree with the clarification that personality traits and even personality disorders are very different than thought disorders/psychoses, etc.</p>
<p>I certainly hope some regulations emerge from this case that force Fertility Experts to exercise some judgement in the future.</p>
<p>Otherwise, there could be many more women who may consider having multiple kids a quick way to get State’s help.</p>
<p>LOL pharmagal–
Oh but if it were truly possible to force people to exercise good judgement… (but I think I know what you mean…)
And most people, Nadya excepted, don’t typically spend $100k to have kids in order to get as state subsidy</p>
<p>Nadya is the topic of so many news sources and TV fodder. The latest I saw seems to indicate that she certainly had either plastic surgery or other procedures that altered her facial features, but she denies this. This is an issue in two respects…one is that it would catch her in another lie. And two, one would wonder how she was able to fund those procedures as well as fund the IVF procedures, all the while receiving government assistance…for the kids’ disabilities, food stamps, and college loans.</p>
<p>I forgot to add that Nadya denies any interest in Angelina Jolie but apparently has been writing Ms. Jolie for a year.</p>
<p>^^don’t forget she’s been living off of her college loans, too.</p>
<p>"Angela Suleman has sharply criticized her daughter Nadya Suleman’s decision to expand her family through artificial insemination despite already having six young children.</p>
<p>But in an interview on CBS’s “The Early Show” posted on the network’s Web site, Angela Suleman said her anger subsided after she saw the babies.</p>
<p>“I thought, ‘My goodness, these are my grandchildren. They’re so tiny and fragile. I’ll have to be there for them, you know, like I was for the others,’” she said.</p>
<p>“You can resent your daughter for just so long and then you see that she’s trying so hard to take care of these children,” Angela Suleman said. “She’s a very good mother … but then she had a good example.”</p>
<p>She said she already spends her entire retirement income caring for the six grandchildren who live with her…"
[The</a> Associated Press: Octuplets’ grandmother conciliatory in interview](<a href=“http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ilIx-PXnXPpwF1a_nlRYF00fzBIQD96CT1E80]The”>http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ilIx-PXnXPpwF1a_nlRYF00fzBIQD96CT1E80)</p>
<p>I can understand how the grandmother must feel. I have to admit, when I hear the babies themselves being referred to as “a litter” or “a drain on society” that it bothers me a great deal. I know it’s really meant as a criticism of the mother and/or the doctor (and there I have to say I’m not so understanding) , but the children (babies!) are completely innocent here and don’t deserve these kind of labels.</p>
<p>Well, IMHO Grandma did not do her job well. Would any of us expect that our children would continue to rely on us as much as Nadya relies on her? We raise our children to become independent, responsible adults – who hopefully have intimate relationships with other adults. We don’t want to continue to be responsible for our adult children, not to mention their children.</p>
<p>VeryHappy - you took the words right out of my mouth. Nadya’s parents did not do a good job raising her to be a responsible member of society. As a parent I always believe that it is my obligation to raise my two Ds to be responsible members of society and not a drain on my husband and I or on anyone else!</p>