Moms offer reality check on multiple births

[Liberal_in_LA]

Moms offer reality check on multiple births
When public attention fades, financial stress, emotional strain set in

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29185008/

updated 2 hours, 18 minutes ago

CHICAGO - Nadya Suleman's daunting future of raising octuplets into adulthood may best be understood by the exhausted but proud parents of other multiples and the researchers who study them.

And if there's anyone who could give Suleman some frank advice, it's a mom with five toddlers.

"There's a lot of hype for the first few months and everybody is interested in how you're doing, but the newness wears off after the first year," said Jenny Ferrill, 31, of Danville, Ill. She and her husband, Pete, 35, are raising 2-year-old quintuplets. Four of the five children have lifelong medical problems and the Ferrills are falling behind paying bills.

She and other parents of multiples say they would advise the California mother of 14 that donations that seem plentiful now will taper off after the first year. Somehow free formula and diapers never morph into free shoes or forgiven medical bills. Requests for TV interviews dwindle. Offers to baby-sit, if they ever existed, vanish.

Next can come financial stress, emotional strain and marital struggles

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Stressed, fatigued families

One German study of 54 families of multiples found that most were severely fatigued with worry about money problems, their children's disabilities and chronic diseases. Nearly all the families relied on outsiders for help and financial support. Some felt guilty they had brought a burden on their families through fertility treatment.

[aquart]

1. They deserve to feel guilty.

Their personal self-indulgence is a burden on everyone, not least the children.

[sutz12]

3. I can't really go that harsh on most of these people...

Many of them are people who couldn't get pregnant the normal way. The IVT techs are getting better at limiting the multiples (present case excepted, of course). Most of these folks just wanted one and hit the jackpot, so to speak.

So I will cut some slack. JMO, of course. You may now continue your rant. :)

[Sal Minella]

5. It seems obvious to me that no more than two eggs should be implanted if the mother and/or father

refuses to agree to selective reduction. (I am working from the clue that women have two boobs.)

Why on earth commence a pregnancy of 5, 6, 7 , 8 if the mother and doctor both know beforehand that selective reduction will not be used, thus inevitably putting the future preemies at grave risk of life-long medical problems needing expensive care?

Can fertility doctors not think nine months ahead?

Maybe making the doctors responsible for paying for the care of the disabled preemies would trigger some sort of thought process about the consequences of their actions.

Patients slipping cash to the doc's wife out in the hall strikes me as less-than-responsible medical practice.

[KittyWampus]

9. Only ever 2-3. Any woman can agree to abort at the outset and then change her decision

And for those older women who think they'd benefit from having 7 embryos transfered at once, that's just Life.

Maybe it's time for women to embrace themselves as they are. Potentially infertile and willing to either adopt or go the surrogate route.

[LisaL]

13. Embracing yourself as you are? Just imagine applying it to other

health defects. Should diabetics embrace themselves as they are and refuse insulin or medications?
Have high blood pressure? Why, just embrace yourself as you are. If your hearing is no good, don't even dream about cochlear implant.
Seriously.

[salguine]

14. Except nobody has diabetes implanted by a doctor. See the difference?

[LisaL]

15. Diabetes is a disease, not a cure.

You are not making sense.

[salguine]

17. No, I really think you're the one not making sense. The whole point was,

it's a ridiculous comparison—diabetes is not something people have because they want it and take deliberate steps to get it. This is how it differs from implanted embryos.

[B2G]

2. Unless

you're willing to prostitute your kids out like the ghastly Gosselins.

God, I cannot stand those 2.

[Inkyfuzzbottom]

4. I honestly don't get it.

If you want a child so badly, why not adopt one that's already here and needs someone to love it? It seems selfish to go to such extreme measures and expense to have a child that is genetically yours. If you love children so much, why not adopt them when you're are unable to conceive the natural way? Please, no bullshit about the cost and the waiting to adopt. All the IVF stuff costs a fortune and can take forever to work. Besides, children weren't meant to born in litters. If they were you wouldn't see all the chronic problems you find with children born in litters. Mother Nature knows what she's doing. If you can't conceive she's trying to tell you something.

[LisaL]

6. Mother nature knows what she is doing? So I suppose when

you get sick, you don't go to a doctor, right? Cause mother nature knows what she is doing.
And seriously, all those posts about adoption. If adoption was easy, my bet many more people would be adopting. It is not easy, it is not cheap, and if biological parents change their mind, some people end up losing the kids. But yet, poster after poster insists people who want biological chidren should just adopt. Right.

:eyes:

[pipi_k]

7. Mother nature does know what she's doing

First off, women were NOT meant to have litters. That's why multiple births are as uncommon as they are.

Some of these women will enlist the help of scientists in helping them conceive (overriding what is clearly God's will that they NOT conceive) and then when mankind manages to thwart God's will (not that I believe myself, I'm just quoting the "believers") by implanting all those embryos, they thank GOD for "giving them those babies".

WTF?????

God created them sterile, for crissakes! Why the hell are they thanking him? Thank the damned doctors who are messing with "god's will"!

as for people who can't have children trying for adoption, OK...adoption can be rough. But how about adopting disabled children? Or the kids nobody really wants anyway...

But there are other options for people who can neither have children nor adopt...like being foster parents. Or being step-parents/mentors to poor children who need support and love. Working with children in the schools or visiting sick children in hospitals.

So many other options...so many children out there who need and deserve love from people who really care. But, shamefully, so many SELFISH people who think the only children they can truly love are of their own bodies.

[KittyWampus]

10. Well, it isn't "God". It's Life and also the Choices we make. If we wait til we are 40, chances are

we might not conceive.

[LisaL]

12. None of the women mentioned in the article where anywhere

near 40 when they gave birth.

[LisaL]

11. Oh give me a break. Using your logic, someone with a heart

defect shouldn't have surgery to correct it. After all, it must be god's will for that person to die young.

:eyes:

[Crunchy Frog]

16. Or utilizing fertility treatments and having a baby.

Just because somebody suffers from infertility doesn't mean that they have an obligation to take care of the children the rest of society doesn't want. Not everybody is cut out to adopt disabled children. Some people just want to have normal families with children of their own.

Why are infertile people who want children all of a sudden more SELFISH than everybody else?

[pipi_k]

8. Anyway, back to the topic...

Stupid, stupid people.

Did they really think they would keep other peoples' interest for very long?

what a big surprise....

:sarcasm: