Posted on 01/30/2009 2:19:36 AM PST by Canticle_of_Deborah
There’s so much strange and conflicting information coming out about this case, that it’s premature to start hurling criticisms. It sure sounds like some criticism is due somewhere, but who should get it is harder to tell. The current Fox News version of this has a summary saying the father is headed back to Iraq as a contract worker, though in the text of the article it isn’t clear whether the grandmother-sourced reference to “her husband” means the mom-of-14’s husband or the grandmother’s husband.
Setting aside for the moment the improbability of a set of octuplets resulting from IVF (as is suggested by quotes from grandma re “implanted” embryos, but no other source), if this was IVF, who the heck was paying for it? The mother is either single or married to a guy who has to go Iraq to find work. There is no insurance policy on the planet that covers IVF for women who don’t have a documented diagnosis of infertility, and this woman already had 6 children, with the youngest being 2 year old twins. Somebody is supporting the 6 kids (probably at least in part the taxpayers), an in the absence of any evidence of great wealth in the family, it’s hard to fathom where the money would have come from for out-of-pocket IVF fees.
I suspect the grandmother is clueless about the details of her daughter’s fertility treatments, and that this pregnancy actually resulted from fertility drugs plus either natural or artificial insemination. But who knows. NONE of this story makes sense. The only reason I can think of that a fairly young woman who already has 6 children, including 2 year old twins, would undertake ANY kind of fertility treatment is if she has a new husband or boyfriend with whom she has not yet had any children.
For now, lacking any plausible or verifiable set of facts to explain what we’ve heard so far, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. For all we know, her first husband and father of the six skipped out on her, she remarried a wonderful young man, wanted to have at least one child with him, discovered she had developed some new fertility problem (perhaps premature ovarian aging, meaning running out of time, despite chronologically young age), took fertility drugs, got pregnant naturally or artificially, and her new husband got killed serving in Iraq while she was pregnant. Not terribly likely, but neither is any other scenario that could explain this situation.
Good points!
Most IVF clinics will “implant multiple embryos” in appropriate situations, but not 8, and not even more than 2-3 in a young woman who has had any babies already (much less twins just 2 years ago). It’s frequently done for a patient like a childless 42 year old whose 2+ previous IVF cycles have resulted in no babies, and whose embryos can reasonably be presumed to be between 90% and 100% non-viable due to aneuploidies and other problems.
Nothing makes sense here, and I would caution that the only source of the “implanted embryos” information is the mother, who may be unclear about the technical details and terminology of fertility treatments, and whose statements are being filtered through random journalists (the mother apparently said something about a “husband” going back to Iraq to work, but depending on which media source you read, this is assumed to mean either the husband of the octuplets’ mother, or the husband of the grandmother).
Yes, technically “transfer” is the only correct term for what the IVF doctor actually does with embryos. But any embryo that has turned into a baby, no matter how it got in there, has to have “implanted” after its arrival in the uterus. It’s quite possible that journalists who aren’t clear on this have scrambled the grandmother’s statements, and that the grandmother was using the term correctly, referring to embryos that resulted from fertility drugs, but not IVF, and then implanted themselves. I can see a journalist assuming this meant “implanted” (as in transferred) by a doctor, and then arranging information about other things the grandmother said in accordance with this mistaken assumption.
gracias :)
No one will ever figure out who she is.
ROFL
One of the articles said 8 embryos were implanted and they were surprised all “took” so to speak.
If the info FRF linked is correct, Nadya Suleman is a Middle Eastern name and she is around 31.
RE: “They’re keeping her name confidential...but they give her mother’s name.
No one will ever figure out who she is.”
“ROFL”
**********
Exactly. And a “neighbor” was interviewed on local L.A. news Thursday night — saying (in a disgusted sounding way) that it appeared the mother is happy to have all these children. Call me cynical, but I see a lot of taxpayer money being tossed to this family for sustenance. Blecchh!
My guess was middle-eastern as well, based on all the other Sulemans listed on zabasearch
When I worked ER it was common for wealthy Middle Eastern immigrants to hide their money from the govt. so they could get free insurance (MediCal). I am not accusing the Sulemans of doing this but I am wondering why they have a second big home somewhere and ended up at the hospital where they did. It's been a while, but IIRC Bellflower isn't exactly a great part of southern CA?
The octuplets plus six existing chilrun, that makes it twelve altogether! Wow!
Is the woman a citizen? Is she Muslim? There has to be more to this story than what we are hearing. This is insane.
Fox News (or CNN) had some doctors on the other night. While there are no official guidelines, one doctor said the standard limit was 4 embryos for transfer.
From your link. There is no mention of a father. It’s the grandfather who is going back to work in his native Iraq.
CBS) CBS News has learned that the family of the octuplets born this week outside Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy and abandoned a home a little over a year-and-a-half ago.
Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman says the mother is in her mid-thirties and lives with her parents.
There’s been no mention of the octuplets’ father, Kauffman observes.
The grandfather, she adds, is apparently going to head back to his native Iraq to earn money for the growing family. He told CBS News he’s a former Iraqi military man.
Kauffman reported Thursday, and the octuplets’ maternal grandmother now confirms to the Los Angeles Times, that the babies’ mother already had six young children.
And a family acquaintance had told Kauffman that two of the six other kids are twins, and the six range in age from about two to about seven.
CBS is reporting the father in question is the father of the woman who gave birth. Grandpa is returning to his native Iraq to support the kids.
Googling Nadya Suleman, I found articles saying that her last name is Gutierrez and that she works in a fertility clinic.
The family is hiding a lot which makes me suspicious (and very annoyed).
aaahhh. That explains how she could afford it. She got a discount I’m sure.
But why does a 31 y.o. woman with six kids and no identified man in her life need fertility treatments?????
We better hold off on the *country of origin* for awhile.
Suleman (if spelled correctly) could be African, middle eastern, ancient Anglo-Saxon, etc..
I’m still betting ILLEGAL.
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