The Big Lot

This kinda makes me think twice about becoming a single mother by choice! (But it won't stop me from trying. Haha.)

Make that 14: Octuplet mom already had 6 kids

By THOMAS WATKINS and LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press Writers

WHITTIER, Calif. – How in the world does a woman with six children get a fertility doctor to help her have more — eight more? An ethical debate erupted Friday after it was learned that the Southern California woman who gave birth to octuplets this week had six children already. Large multiple births "are presented on TV shows as a 'Brady Bunch' moment. They're not," fumed Arthur Caplan, bioethics chairman at the University of Pennsylvania. He noted the serious and sometimes lethal complications and crushing medical costs that often come with high-multiple births.

But Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, who has fertility clinics in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, countered: "Who am I to say that six is the limit? There are people who like to have big families."

Kaiser Permanente announced the mega-delivery Monday in Bellflower, with delighted doctors saying they had initially expected seven babies and were surprised when the cesarean section yielded an eighth.

Multiple births this big are considered impossible without fertility treatment, but the doctors who delivered the babies would not say whether the 33-year-old woman had used fertility drugs or had embryos implanted in her womb.

However, the children's grandmother, Angela Suleman, was quoted as telling the Los Angeles Times that her daughter had embryos implanted last year, and never intended to give birth to eight, but "they all happened to take." Suleman said her daughter rejected an offer from doctors to abort some of the embryos.

More common among younger women is the use of fertility drugs that stimulate egg production; doctors are supposed to monitor budding eggs and stop the drugs if too many develop.

Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that the woman was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.