Today Show interview with Octuplet Mom...

[TeacupDemon]

freaky mouth!!!!!

I was trying to listen to what she was saying, but all I could do was stare at those bloated lips flopping around!

Don't you know that when you have 14 children, collagen injections are at the top of your "must have" list?

 

[SueM in MN]

Well... there are all those "hidden" disabilities. My Aunt had MS (only "visible" towards her last days) and could not work, but gave birth to and raised 4 children and I have a sister with Fibromyalgia who is unable to work who has two children. Are disabled people not allowed to have children?

That is NOT what I wrote.
And I am certainly NOT against people with disabilities being allowed to have children. When I worked in Public Health, some of my clients were people with disabilities and I assisted them in figuring out how to care for their child despite the limitations their disability caused.

I was writing in the context that she was on disability pay, saying she could not work due to her disability, then got pregnant the first time and said the pregnancy aggrevated the disability to the extent that she could not function.
And, that pregnancy was only a single baby.
But, then she went on with 5 more pregnancies and 13 more babies. If one pregnancy caused her disability to be aggravated, what about the others; Carrying 8 children would be risky and cause even more potential harm to her back.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Now she is the mother of 14, including octuplets born last week. The disclosure that the single mother already had six children ranging from 2 to 7 years old prompted a torrent of criticism and questions about the ethics of her fertility treatment.

"That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family,"

Six children IS a huge family. My siblings and I have an average age of around 49 - and six children was a large family even back then! Now, when the average family is what, 1.8 children? Six is huge.

She told NBC she struggled for seven years before finally giving birth to her first child.

Back to my family again. There were no fertility treatments back then (or if there were, my parents either didn't know or couldn't afford them). They tried for TEN years before their first child was born.

In the interview — which was scheduled to air on the "Today" show Monday and again Tuesday on "Dateline" — Suleman calls her childhood as an only child "pretty dysfunctional."

Ah, right - which is why it makes perfect sense to accept both financial and physical assistance from the same parents responsible for one's "pretty dysfunctional" childhood to raise one's OWN children.

Suleman attributed the lingering pain in part to the breakup of her marriage to Marcos Gutierrez, whom she wed in 1996 and divorced in 2008.

Whew! Sperm donor or not, at least Gutierrez is legally considered the father, and therefore financially responsible for, the six older children. Whew!

I saw the interview. It reminded me of the interview with Rod Blagovich. Both times it was like the interviewer and the interviewee were not even in the same room. Both people are so delusional. I don't know how you get through to someone like that.

Well, there you go! The two of them can team up and do speaking engagement! "The Self-Delusional Tour"!

 

[EMom]

Whew! Sperm donor or not, at least Gutierrez is legally considered the father, and therefore financially responsible for, the six older children. Whew!

I don't know if I agree with you on that one. If he was on the birth certificate as the father, that's one thing. But I don't think he is. It appears the sperm donor is. There is a "legal father" aspect that you hear about which most often comes into play if the wife conceived the child with another man and that man wants parental rights to the child. Many states (and I think CA may be one of them) go with the public policy of the child being the "child of the marriage" if it was conceived during the marriage, the marriage is intact, and the husband is asserting parental rights. Meaning, if the husband wants to be the daddy, the biodad doesn't have a leg to stand on so long as the H&W stay married. But once they divorce, he can try and assert his rights. If the husband has claimed to be the daddy for years, he can't just walk away at this point and say, "They're not mine!" Once you stake a claim, you must keep supporting them. But after a divorce, the biodad can come forward and try to get visitation, etc. But that's not what we're dealing with here.

In this case, the marriage was legally intact, but they were separated. I don't think the husband ever claimed to be the father of the children and I don't think the mother ever asserted he was. It seems she named the sperm donor/friend as the father on the birth certificates. If this is true, that doofus is the one who is liable for child support, not her former husband. Given the sketchy facts we are aware of....and heaven knows the mother wouldn't know the truth if it bit her on the hiney......I think the former husband is going to get a pass. And he should. Being married to that loon was punishment enough.

This is a serious simplification, but if you have a legal husband and a biodad, someone needs to clarify EARLY ON just who the daddy is. If you are the husband and you want to be daddy, depending on the law in your state you are probably in a good position, especially if you're named as the father on the BC. If you're the biodad and you want to be daddy, you'd best hope mommy names you on the BC and the laws of the state give you a window of rights, because many do not unless the couple divorces. If you are the husband and you do not want to be the daddy (as in this case) someone else needs to be named as daddy on the BC or else you had better make certain you are legally declared NOT the father of that kid ASAP. Because if no one else steps up as daddy, the law presumes the husband is daddy. Husband needs to start yelling, "The kid isn't mine and I want that on record." That's how he'll get out of 18 years of child support. Staying married to the wife and then speaking up 7 years later about her infidelity and the baby not being yours is too little/too late. Sort of like the marriage ceremony....Speak now or forever hold your peace.