Octuplets

[iluvmybabies]

Now, on the flip side…on a more positive note…I think it’s great to see a person so open to life, that she is willing to bear this responsiblity. So, while it seems odd on the one hand, it’s inspiring to a degree. Definitely one of the more unusual stories I’ve read about recently.

Yup but based on her history of not raising her first 6 children, I don’t think it’s fair for all the other 8 children to be raised by grandparents not parents you know? BUT I still believe those are some wonderful miracles!!!

 

[Truly_Beloved]

How is a woman with 6 kids even eligible for fertility treatments?

I believe all of her children are the result of IVF – What makes her circumstance “different” is that she chose to implant all of her babies over the past few years, instead of leaving them frozen or disposing of them. I got the impression that she only did IVF once, but had several children conceived as a result, and decided to try to give birth to all of them.

I may be wrong. If I am, I’m sure someone will correct me.

 

[KCT]

I dunno good question…I asked myself that exact question-how in the world is a single woman-mom of 6 children all under the age of 10-eligible for invitro a second time in the first place???.

Relativism . . . “It’s not for me, but I have no right to tell you what is ‘right’ for you.”

 

[whatevergirl]

People are not dogs and cats, they should not be having litters.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know the pain of not being able to conceive, since I am not married, but doesn’t this whole situation reek of the classic “what I want, not what God wants”?

Think about it, the woman has six kids, and decides she wants one more, but can’t make it happen. Did she pray? (She’s not Catholic, is she?) So she turned to a method that has been proven to work for others, even though it tends to result in multiple births.

I do not agree with the venom being spewed towards this woman (her and her children will need lots of prayers) but isn’t it possible that her not being able to conceive for a 7th time was God’s way of telling her “this is enough”?

I guess it all boils down to how in tuned we are with hearing God’s will for us.

I don’t know all the details of this story, but you make an excellent point.

 

[Truly_Beloved]

I do not agree with the venom being spewed towards this woman (her and her children will need lots of prayers) but isn’t it possible that her not being able to conceive for a 7th time was God’s way of telling her “this is enough”?

From the news articles I have read, all of her children are the result of one-time IVF, which means God didn’t say “yes” to any of her attempts at natural conception.

 

[lifeisbeautiful]

From the news articles I have read, all of her children are the result of one-time IVF, which means God didn’t say “yes” to any of her attempts at natural conception.

That’s what I read too. She wanted to implant the last embryos. I also read in another place that some of the other times she had implanted 6 too. It just so happens that this time she did not lose any, and 2 divided. As to the “regulations” here in the US, although there are no laws, I read that the older the woman the more embryos they will implant (I guess the older you are, the less of a chance of it working out). If you are over 40 the “guideline” is up to 5 embryos (one less than she did, this girl was under 40 though).

Anyways, I still think the root of the problem is IVF. It is very scary the direction things are heading in this industry. Last year I was at a business dinner with dh (dh and my il’s own a small business together, we were dinning with someone we were planning on doing business with). The man has a Russian wife half his age, and was expecting their first child together through IVF. He was telling us it was going to be a girl, but that they already have plans with the the Clinic where they did the IVF to have a boy later on. He was explaining they were going to have a batch of embryos and get rid of all the girls and pick out the best male ones. My reaction was “That’s awful” and mil’s was “Sounds like Hitler”. He awkwardly answered “well that’s how its done” and changed the subject. I can just see this leading to “designer babies” and all.

 

[Truly_Beloved]

Anyways, I still think the root of the problem is IVF.

Absolutely. The problem is that babies are now commodities, babies are “rights,” babies are property to be purchased, created in a petri dish, and/or disposed of when you don’t want any (more). How sad is that?

My reaction was “That’s awful” and mil’s was “Sounds like Hitler”.

I agree with both you and your mother in law.

 

[Sarabande]

Anyways, I still think the root of the problem is IVF. It is very scary the direction things are heading in this industry. Last year I was at a business dinner with dh (dh and my il’s own a small business together, we were dinning with someone we were planning on doing business with). The man has a Russian wife half his age, and was expecting their first child together through IVF. He was telling us it was going to be a girl, but that they already have plans with the the Clinic where they did the IVF to have a boy later on. He was explaining they were going to have a batch of embryos and get rid of all the girls and pick out the best male ones. My reaction was “That’s awful” and mil’s was “Sounds like Hitler”. He awkwardly answered “well that’s how its done” and changed the subject. I can just see this leading to “designer babies” and all.

It’s so sad and frightening. Kind of reminds me of that movie Gattica - showing a potential future of discrimination against “natural” babies and those which were genetically enhanced.

 

[Zooey]

How is a woman with 6 kids even eligible for fertility treatments?

As a Catholic, I am against IVF, but, even a wholely secular person should support some limits.

I know in some European countries it is illegal to implant more than two embryos. That should be true in the US too.

God Bless

I saw a story on TV about this last night…They said that, actually, the original fertiliuty doctor had turned her down. She went & found another doctor that went ahead with it.
I dunno…I feel sorry for the children, because this is such a strange situation. I wonder about will become of them…
The other thing that really has been upsetting, is that the whole conversation has been about whether or not she should have had all 8 eggs implanted or not; or else people (including her mother) saying that she should have had a “selective reduction”.
Nobody in the media seems to want to face the facts that we are discussing right here–that the real problem is the whole IVF process…To me, this is just another case of proving what is wrong with it…All those little babies, & now she has no way to take care of them. Well, that’s IVF!!

 

[Arwen037]

If you read her interviews you can tell she has a psychological need to have kids. It is a problem that she needs to see a psychologist about. The doctor should have recognized that a single woman (although she she had the first couple she was married), who is going to school, living with her mother, with 6 children at home (all under 8) who feels the NEED to have more kids ARTIFICIALLY has a problem. The doctor could have, and should have requested an evaluation.

But as for limiting kids, what happened here is inexcusably irresponsible. This woman says she tries to hold each of the INFANTS for 45min a day. Children need more time than that from their mother. But that comes out to 6 hours a day just holding kids. When is she suppose to have time for her other kids? When is she suppose to have time to go to school? And with all those kids and going to school, when is she going to work to pay for this all? Yes, she and her children will be a burden on society, which is why this was so irresponsible.

What makes this all worse is she has a degree in child development and she wants to be something like a social worker. She should have known this wasn’t good for her kids, even not knowing she would have octuplets. 7 or 8 kids under 8 when you are single and going to school is irresponsible and selfish. I hope that no one hires this woman to do any kind of advising, we really don’t need more situations like this.

I love kids, which is why I am so against this. This is harmful to the children, and I almost think that these children should be removed from her for negligence.

 

[remjsmom76]

The way she did it was wrong but I think she did what she could do to rectify the wrong she already started. She probably only had enough money to do one final IVF and she already had fertalized eggs. So she gave these eggs a chance to take and well take they did!

Personally as a christian, I will be helping her instead of bashing her. These children are here now and there is nothing we can do about it. They are a gift of GOD no matter what, I mean this whole thing could of gone the other way and NO egg could have taken and we would never have knowns about the woman who implanted 6 embryos and this would never have been an issue. However GOD has a plan and they are now here.

Everyone has some kind of Govt help at one point or another. If you file taxes you get the EIC or CTC. I get 1,000 for each kid I have when I file my taxes. You cant say that isnt govt. help, cause it is!

 

[remjsmom76]

OH AND IF EVERYONE IS SO ANGRY AT THE TIME given for each child (comment from the poster who said each child needs more than 45 mins from their mom) so far I havent seen anyone tear down the Duggar Family. I have heard those children need to make and ‘appointment’ to have mom and dad time. That woman has had almost 20 kids…she isnt even 40 yet, her oldes son about 22 has gotten married and his new wife has been quoted as saying that she will follow dear MIL footsteps and have children until menopause.

 

[Arwen037]

If that’s true then I criticize the Dugger family too, even though I don’t know who they are. When you have that little time for children, it is neglect. And that 22 year old needs to have someone point out how little time his siblings had. He may have had a little bit more time, being the oldest, so when he needed it he wasn’t competing with as many siblings as say, the 10th kid down the line.

It is also harmful to the woman’s body to have kids every year because you’re body takes a while to recover. I think I’ve heard that optimally you should wait 2 years between kids so your body can fully recover.

 

[remjsmom76]

Yes I agree, but as far as i can tell the Duggar family has had their own show on TLC, they recieved donations to furnish their new home and even had some of their new home donated to them ( they built their own home) The Duggar father was once a U.S. Sent. or Rep…I dont know which…but he was, and according to them they dont have any debt. They have this thing called the buddy system. One older child cares for one younger child and mom is always the babies buddy until its weaned. She has a baby at least every year or every 2 years for sure. Everytime they make a new documentary shes has a new baby in her arms and is pregnant. Shes also had twins several of them actually but she either has already 20 kids or is nearing her 20th child.

If that’s true then I criticize the Dugger family too, even though I don’t know who they are. When you have that little time for children, it is neglect. And that 22 year old needs to have someone point out how little time his siblings had. He may have had a little bit more time, being the oldest, so when he needed it he wasn’t competing with as many siblings as say, the 10th kid down the line.

It is also harmful to the woman’s body to have kids every year because you’re body takes a while to recover. I think I’ve heard that optimally you should wait 2 years between kids so your body can fully recover.

 

[remjsmom76]

Here is their website

http://www.duggarfamily.com/

 

[JimG]

The problem is not particularly the number of children, although it would be impossible to have that number of children in that short a period of time by natural means.

And the problem is not that she implanted all the embryos instead of destroying them.

And the problem is not that she refused selective reduction to kill off some of the children in utero.

The problem is IVF. It turns children into commodities and denies them a natural father.

 

[apromisemade]

I don’t know if anyone watches Dr. Phil here. But I just saw a special he did on the “octuplet outrage,” and I think he pretty much summed it up.

“Kids should not be born with a job of healing their mother or filling her void. That’s not fair for children to come into this world with a job, and for her to make that decision is wrong," Dr. Phil says. “She made that decision because she’s not psychologically equipped to make a better decision. So why not stop judging her for it. Get her some help for that.”

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

It is one thing to honor and value Life and quite another to worship children and make them your idols. Having more children than you can reasonably care for is not valuing them at all. It is selfish.

That woman is insane and does not deserve to have those children, they should be taken away from her. And as far as the Duggars–they do not bring glory to God they bring ridicule and reproach. What happened to modesty (knowing your limits)? It is unbalanced and shameful. It makes Christians look like kooks.

 

[JLCecilia]

Forgive me, I haven’t read all the posts here, but I had a reaction to my co-worker’s response to this woman and how she shouldn’t get any sort of ‘deals’ from the public or merchandisers and such. I thought about it, and, while I don’t agree w/ what she did, how she did it, or why, I can’t help but thinking that these poor little babies have done nothing wrong. If for no other reason than for their sake, I’d say we need to rally around this woman. Again, not condoning what she did, I whole-heartedly disagree w/ IVF and think that this was an irresponsible choice, but that’s all insignificant at this point.

Upon further thought, I’ve read where the IVF clinician’s practice has been put under scrutiny and how normally no physician would ever implant that many eggs . . .it kind of makes me think about our economic situation and how lenders have irresponsibly given credit to people who shouldn’t have it. Hmmm . . .

 

[Arwen037]

It isn’t fair to the older children to make them be the caretakers of their siblings. That is the parents’ job. Not being able to care for your own children is wrong, no matter who you pass them off to. Being able to pay for the kids doesn’t make it okay, but not being able to afford them makes it worse.

IVF is wrong, but so is having that many kids through natural means. In either case you are being selfish, and not considering what this will do to your children. IVF just makes this irresponsibility easier.