I thought I was the only person in the world who was saying, “This smells hinky to me, and it smells exactly like someone who has fourteen cats in a tiny apartment, or like someone who dies alone, and then when people go in to empty the house out, find the place stacked floor to ceiling with old newspapers, machine parts, 40 years’ worth of phone books, two hundred pounds of unsorted, unopened mail, wrapping paper, packing boxes, and seventeen broken telephones piled carefully in a corner.”

Of course, as you so articulately elaborated, everyone’s supposed to see massively multiple births as wonderful and miraculous and the pinnacle of female aspiration, I’m not sure how many people have ever thought to apply the “collector” (or “hoarder”) paradigm to babies. What seems particularly noteworthy to me (or at least seems to be a big “tell”) about the Suleman case is that Suleman’s older children are getting to the age where they’re no longer babies; they’re not cute, sweet, and cuddly anymore (inasmuch as babies are cute, sweet, and cuddly, a proposition I personally find highly dubious), and might be capable of having their own opinions on things.

I figured I just had a difference of opinion with the world because I genuinely do not like babies at all, and the thought of gestating makes me blanch.

I think her marital status is driving some of the negative coverage, and that’s as obnoxious as it is predictable, because yes, the media treats multiple births as sunshine and roses if the parents are married and at the very least middle-class if not upper-middle-class (see, e.g., Jon and Kate Plus Eight). I think that there’s a presumption that only married couples of a certain class get fertility treatments, and the issue of providing for this many kids, with or without a husband, isn’t really discussed with any kind of clarity, partly because those nice married-couple sunshine-and-roses parents of mega-multiples often get showered with freebies. And, of course, having babies when you’re not married is Shameful, at least officially.

But I think the real thing that started the freakout was the news that she had so many very young children *already.* And I think that might have freaked people out even if she were married, but it might have freaked them out differently — I think it might actually lead to more discussion of the ethics of fertility clinics and doctors this way. If she were married, the ethical issues, in terms of the doctors’ role and her mental health, might not be so stark because the husband would be a confounding factor — some of the questions might be shifted onto him and off the doctors.

Any thoughts on the attention being paid to her marital status (or lack thereof)? I hate that being married is always hailed as the golden ticket of parenting — if she was just married, everything would be okay.

It sounds like, from that story I posted about the Mexican immigrant woman who had quads, fertility drugs are readily obtainable in Mexico. And another story I read (though I can’t find it ATM) speculated it was possible for her doctor to have implanted fewer than 8 and they multiplied due to the fertility drugs. Which makes some sense, but you’d think that the doctor would have been testing her hormone levels, you know?

Something very, very weird is going on.

And I have to say, this kind of thing really bugs me because of the way I was treated when I started to seek a tubal. It was a big deal to find a doctor who’d even consider doing it, then I had to submit to her “You’ll change your mind” blather, then I had to wait a state-mandated 30 days. The whole process was designed to remind me that there was something unnatural about a woman who didn’t want kids, and the default idea was that I was mentally defective. It also bugs me because lesbians who want to have assistance to conceive are often turned away from clinics.

But a hetero woman who already has six kids under 7 years old and a history of mental problems? Let’s give her more kids, paid for by insurance!

I’m also having a hard time conceptualizing the whole thing. Your children are not dolls or baseball cards or cars or anything else that you collect. They’re human beings who deserve your love and attention and I think anyone who doesn’t view their children that way should see a psychiatrist (or not have children).

I just can’t believe that what we’ve heard so far is even close to the whole truth, though. There are so many missing details: Who was this mysterious doctor who implanted 8 embryos? What doctor in his/her right mind would do such a thing? Why is a healthy woman who already has 6 children seeking and receiving infertility treatment?