When the story about Nadya Suleman’s octuplets broke, the woman who already is the mother of six children went on NBC’s Today Show to tell America that she can support her children and would not be asking for money.
Now, she’s launched a Web site asking for donations to help care for her 14 children. Before having the octuplets, she was on food stamps and her mother paid her bills and cared for her children. She says she’s “gone” when her daughter gets out of the hospital.
This whole story makes me angry. Suleman has her priorities screwed up by hiring a publicist over a nanny and trying to fuel her obsession with Angelina Jolie by having so many children and undergoing plastic surgery to look more like the actress.
I’m angry because everyone now lumps all women who go through IVF in with Suleman. She makes everyone who has or will go through IVF look bad. Listeners calling into a popular Atlanta radio station bad mouthed all infertile women going through IVF and said that procedure should not be allowed. Sure, it shouldn’t be allowed to occur if eight embryos are transferred. Most clinics won’t transfer more than two to prevent this kind of situation from happening.
And, I’m angry for her children. With 14 children being raised in a single-parent household, there will be hardly any individual attention for those kids, and that kind of attention, in my opinion, is necessary for growth and development. And, with a mother on food stamps and living in her parents’ rundown three-bedroom home, what kind of life will those children have?
You know, I was wondering if she had surgery to look like Angelina or if it was just a coincidence…
I just can’t believe this. This mom has 14 kids and gets disability. I can’t work because of all the surgeries I have had and being on neurontin(a nerve pain medicine). I can’t get disability to help with our bills, because I didn’t worked long enough. This just isn’t fair. I am a married mom of 3 and have had 3 surgeries just in the past year and have had several since 2004. IMO This women is taking advantage of whatever she can. There are so many people like me that need the disabilty help and go to food banks because we don’t qualify and get pushed aside.
Arizona Mom
Im praying for you!!
amen… she just kills me… here I am a normal person trying to make ends meet and she gets free stuff… what???
but you are right it isn’t fair for the responsible doctors and other families trying to have children and go the IVF route… I think all of her kids should be taken away forever… heck give them to the Duggers… they at least know how to raise their kids and don’t ask for help to do it…
Suzie, my sister in law suffers daily with a hurt back and takes prescribed pain medication to get thru each day. She cannot sit, stand or walk for any length of time for the pain. She worked for 30 years, and got permanent damage to her back in a car accident (that was not her fault). She has applied for disability 3 times, and was denied 3 times. How in the hell can this selfish woman get that type of help just because she wants “a huge family” so that she won’t be lonely as she was as a child? Those of us who work for a lifetime and need the help should be the ones receiving it! What the hell happened to “3 tykes and you’re out”?
I read that the disability is for three of her children: one is autistic, one has ADHD, and one has speech problems. Now, I know people with kids with all those problems — howcome they’re not getting disability? This story is so wrong on so many levels. Sadly, those 14 children will be just as “lonely” as she was. There’s no way they will ever get enough attention. And I agree that she is putting IVF in a negative light. A couple of my friends have gone through it (responsibly of course — who implants 6 or 8 embryos?), and they have been blessed with very sweet children. I hope that people don’t start lumping all IVF patients into Suleman’s category because that’s not right and that’s not fair. I could rant and rave on this all day! But I’m keeping you & your husband and my thoughts and hoping that IVF works for you. And I’m sure none of your readers think negatively of you for taking this approach!
I feel exactly like you. She has serious personality disorders…borderline, body dysmorphic to name a few. How can she try and say she hasn’t had work done. COME ON!!! I had not seen the pictures until your link. Thanks! I throw up a little in my mouth if I think about it too much. Here I am having to choose between buying a house and doing my first IVF. We don’t have any debt besides a very modest student loan. Makes me sick.
As veterinary reproduction is the field that interests me the most, I personally feel that IVF is often talked about very casually in the media, as though it’s normal. It’s serious medicine and should not be abused.
If she was abusing pain relief or cosmetic surgery she’d be given psychological assessment and help. This is an abuse or artificial fertility.