Fertility treatments...should Doctors be held responsible?

Ok, I am going to just hop up on my handy dandy little soap box. I am sure that by now you have all heard about the woman in California who gave birth to Octuplets this past week. Through the 'miracle' of infertility treatments, she was able to have a child...errr...8 children.

Now, I am very familiar with the outcome of inferility treatments as I have several friends who had gone down this road after being unable to concieve 'naturally'. One of my friends did IVF and it took many many tries, but they now have a lovely 3 year old son. Another friend took another route to infertility by injecting herself with stimulation drugs to ovulate. Her and her husband already had one child (also concieved via treatments) and wanted another. They knew the ONLY way to have another child was to go through treatment and they were aware of the consequences of this, that they could conceivably (pardon the pun!) have multiples. Multiples indeed! She became pregnant with FIVE babies. They were given the choice of selective reduction (destroying one or more embyos in utero) and she actually made the appointment. Because of her faith and beliefs however, she could not go through with it and spent the last three months of her pregnancy in the hospital. It was not easy nor was it something she'd do again! But she did give birth to five very healthy babies who are now almost three! Having higher multiples like this is a concern as one or more fetuses may not get the proper nutrition etc in uturo and may have disabilities. So the choice to continue with a pregnancy of higher multiples is fraught with tough choices. However, when IVF of other fertility treatments are the ONLY way you can have a child, these are the choices you must make.

Getting back to this woman in California. She had SIX children already when she made the CHOICE (implying that she actively sought out help to have MORE) to go with infertility treatments and have more children. She concieved EIGHT. Thanks be to God they are all healthy so far. And I am sure she loves every one of them. But now this woman and her husband (a contractor headed BACK to Iraq!) have 14 children!!! This to me is complete irresponsibility! With six children ranging in age from 2-7 (yah you heard me...she has six kids under the age of 7!) she had her hands full already. Now don't get me wrong. I am not against large families. Many people choose to have them and hey..go for it. I can't bash large families, after all, Mark and I have five children between the two of us! Even with him having one child, and me having two we decided to bring another child into this world together. And then decided to bring one more into the world. But this was our choice and our children were never a burden financially to anyone. Now I am not saying that this family is going to become a burden on the State they live in (ie welfare etc) but what I AM trying to say, is that infertility treatments should be for couples who cannot have children. Who want a family and cannot have one the old fashioned way. It should even be for couples who have a few children (also IVF babies) and want one more. I guess I just find it completely irresponsible of this woman and her husband to go for infertility treatments (even if it resulted in just ONE more child!) when they already had SIX each a year apart! I also find it completely morally and ethically irresponsible of the Doctor who agreed to do this!! Obviously he was just in it for the money. Because no Doctor in his right mind should agree to IVF for a couple who already have six children! Seriously. I just find that this grates on me the wrong way (can you tell?).

I certainly hope that the State of California does not become the main supporter of these children. Especially given the economic times we are living in, parents who opt for infertility treatments should be able to financially support the resulting children no matter how many are concieved. Having a child is a gift, not a right. Having a child means being responsible and proactively parenting them, not popping out as many as you can and expecting everyone else to pay for them.

I am very interested indeed to see how these parents, especially this mom who is going to be on her own while her husband is in Iraq are going to raise 14 kids. Feed them, clothe them, nurture them..put them through college.

They could end up being either an inspiration to us all, or a catastrophe waiting to happen..


Hugs to all,
Jaye