Eight is Too Many

When I first heard that a woman had given birth to octuplets, I assumed she had gotten pg from inj/iui as some doctors are willing to do an iui when you have 10 or more mature follicles. I did it myself a few times. Many RE's won't do that, and in other countries it's illegal. I was stunned to learn that she got pg from IVF. The general rule is that if a woman is under 35 years old then only 1-2 embies are transferred. The number "allowed" rises with age. My clinic allows you to transfer 3 if you are 35 for example (which is what I did in August 2007 when I was 35). She was 33 years old. They also take into account whether you've had previous success with IVF. I had a friend who had many failed ivf cycles so they did continually increase how many embies were transferred back. That doesn't apply to this woman either as her other 6 children were from ivf, and she had already had one set of twins. So what possessed this woman to want to have 6 embies transferred back and what possessed her RE to agree to it, is beyond me. I agree with her decision not to use "selective reduction," but I think she should have done three transfers of two embies each or two transfers of three embies. Even if she still ended up having 14 children, at least she wouldn't have 8 at once. Those eight are going to have health issues that they wouldn't have had if she gave birth to 2-3 at a time rather than 8 at once.

Of course the other issue that comes up with this story is why an umarried, unemployed woman who already has 6 young children (one of whom is autistic and therefore requires more attention than an "average" child would) would be doing ivf again. I don't think she would have been allowed to adopt even one more child in her situation. It just doesn't seem fair that a woman who wants to adopt has to jump through SOOO many hoops to prove she will be a suitable parent, but a woman (or girl) who gets pregnant on her own doesn't have to jump through any hoops, and a woman who pursues IVF only has to prove she doesn't have HIV. Other than that there are no requirements. I am not saying I want women who want to do IVF to have to jump through a million hoops, but it just seems unfair that if that same person wants to adopt in the US or abroad that she has to prove she's "good enough" - financially, emotionally, physically, etc. Well even though I am married, have a job, and only have one other child, I wouldn't agree to transferring back 6 embryos at once (not that my RE would allow it anyhow). I don't want to do something that is going to lead to serious health issues for my children if all the embryos make it.

Yesterday Nadia slept in the car on the way home (6:25-7:40pm), and then I fed her and changed her so she was up for about 45 minutes before she went back to sleep. I thought that meant she would sleep in this morning. Nope. She woke up at 5:45am and started to get fussy around 6:15 so I went and got her a little before 6:30. She got really fussy around 8:15am so I decided to skip Sunday School so that she could have a nap. I let her sleep one hour and then had to wake her up in order to get to church on time. After the choir sang, I went to check on her in the nursery, and she was screaming. They said they had tried everything including giving her a bottle to calm her down to no avail. I warmed her bottle in a microwave in the kitchen and then took her in with me to church for awhile. After she finished the bottle and started to get "chatty," I took her back to the nursery. When I went to pick her up she was crying again, but they said she had been happy until they changed her diaper. They asked if she was teething. She might be, but I think she's just very sensitive to "strangers" these days and the nursery workers today were ones she hadn't met before.

She did really well eating today! She had oatmeal for breakfast and ate a large portion of yogurt plus one serving of homemade baby food (apples). She also really likes the zwieback toast from Grandma. I made the mistake of having her pose for a picture after she ate which is the reason her dress looks so wet in the first picture (I had just cleaned her up). Daddy is reading to her in the 2nd pic. Her favorite book these days is definitely Miss Mary Mack. Her face lights up when you start reading the first page of that book. The 3rd pic shows the evidence of her feeding herself toast today. The 4th pic shows her first time eating toast with Grandma at Shawn's 13th birthday party, and the last pic shows Grandpa letting her sit and watch everyone roller skating. She loves to watch people! I had her decked out in her Steeler stuff. We are the Champions! :-)

The dress she wore today was a Christmas gift from her other Grandma. It's size 9 months and doesn't quite reach her knees. I guess she needs to move into 12 month sized dresses. Paul objected to his daughter wearing a miniskirt. I think she could wear black leggings under it and it would be like an oversized shirt instead of a dress. This way we can get more use out of some of her 9 month size dresses. She's growing so fast!

I am getting much better at doing her car seat. It didn't bother me today. Of course it's a lot easier when she's not wearing her snowsuit. It was really warm today! The snow that has covered our grass for many weeks actually melted today (most of it anyhow). I can't wait for spring! Spring and fall are my two favorite seasons.