Friday 30 January 2009

Unto them that hath shall be given?

A Californian woman who gave birth to octuplets earlier this week already has six children, US media has reported. The eight babies were delivered nine weeks early by Caesarean section in a hospital near Los Angeles on Monday. The mother has not been named, but US media is quoting family members as saying she already has six other children, including twins.

The Los Angeles Times later carried an interview with a woman identified as the babies' grandmother, who said her daughter already has six young children and never expected fertility treatment she had received would result in eight more babies. She said that doctors had given her daughter the option of reducing the number of embryos, but she had declined.

Officials at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, near Los Angeles, said the woman was already 12 weeks pregnant when she came to them. Despite media questioning, the hospital has declined to say whether the mother became pregnant through fertility treatments.

Well. I do not know how much of this is based on fact. I cannot imagine why a woman with six children would even share her bed with a male still less seek fertility treatment. I understand that the odds of producing that many embryo naturally are many millions to one. So, what the heck were the fertility clinic people thinking when they took her on? The woman cannot have been struck with a warm glow of maternal desire; she had six children and would have known full well what a further eight would entail. Check on that but I bet she will do very well from advertising deals. A slightly arcane point is that her husband is a civilian contractor in Iraq; a job with a higher than average risk of sudden death which would just about wipe out the security of the family.

There is now updated information about this woman. Some form of pathological condition that makes her want children. Keep her away from me please!

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