Octuplet Mom

All I can say is wow. When the news first broke that there was a women who gave birth to octuplets at thirty weeks I couldn't helpt but think, what a miracle! That seems like a long gestational age for so many babies. Then the story began to unfold. She was single, had six other children, unemployed and as suspected, had medical assistance to achieve this pregnancy. Another wow, okay hmmmm. I hoped that maybe she was independently wealthy or perhaps she had some sort of supernatural support outside her family unit. I cringed everytime I heard people bashing her or some nosey journalist uncovering some 'juicy' detail about her life.

Then I saw the interview on Dateline. While I attempt to reserve judgement, truthfully my heart aches for those beautiful children. The mother appears to be dilusional. The lack of reality can only be the result of some sort of mental illenss. I seriously wonder how long it will take before social services steps in.

Now people are up in arms about the fact that the state of California will probably be footing the bill for the medical care of those babies. While I am not crazy about this fact either, shouldn't we be taking a step back? She isn't the only one whose baby is receiving free medical care. I don't know the statistics but, I wonder how many OTHER premature babies born in the state of California are done so on tax payers dime. It HAS be more than eight. No one is screaming about that?

I am in no way defending this mothers poor choices. But I do think that public condemnation will never benefit those fourteen precious lives. Whats done is done. I pray we begin to hear less trashing of this mother. Her situation has brought many important topics to light. I hope we begin to hear healthy debate surrounding obsessive mental illnesses and ethics behind these types of fertility treatments. Most importantly I pray we hear more about how we should handle the huge population of people who seem to care very little about the impact their decisions have on the rest of the world.