Just for the record.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28939439/

http://www.newsweek.com/id/182355

So now the truth about this octuplet mess is starting to leak out, as the truth inevitably does, and I have to say I am pretty horrified at this turn of events. Initially, I was thinking, well, this woman must have gone to pretty serious lengths to either get pregnant or maintain a pregnancy. Just from having friends who have gone through various kinds of fertility therapies I understand that not every embryo in an IVF situation takes, or not every monthly Clomid cycle will ultimately end in a multiple birth. Chances are better, sure, but it's not a guarantee. So when the octuplet story initially broke, I imagined that this woman was childless, the clock was clanging, her doctor was perhaps a little more aggressive than I would have wanted (but everyone likes the doctor they like)....and she ended up with 8, and for a lot of reasons, many of which I don't personally understand, she decided to carry them all, presumably because she wanted to (in her mind) maximize her chances of having any babies, and probably for some religious reasons thrown in.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This woman has six living children. It wasn't that she had six pregnancies and lost them. No, no. She has delivered six living human beings. They are living in her house. She isn't childless. She is the exact opposite of childless. She has 200% more children than I do, right now. And yet she sought fertility treatments? And some clown who probably bought his medical degree from some school in Granada gave it to her? And gave her EIGHT EMBRYOS right off the bat? For what? To prove it could be done? To put this woman in a position of having FOURTEEN CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF SEVEN? Does anyone else see how utterly insane and unworkable this situation is?

I had twins. It wasn't eight. It wasn't even three. It was two. And Ellie was 15.5 months old when they were born. And I will tell you right now that it's a good thing I took lots of pictures the first year of the twins' life, because I almost remember nothing from it. There were plenty of days where I had 2 hours' sleep, for days in a row, for weeks in a row. Helen couldn't digest anything with lactose in it and until we switched her to soy she never slept more than 45 minutes straight for about 8 weeks. You have no idea how horrible it is to have a premature baby who can't, won't sleep. And then Emma was on a completely different schedule (and I was nursing her) and let's not forget Ellie, who still was a baby herself. And I had lots of help, paid, unpaid, related, unrelated but might as well be. I wasn't trying to do it by myself, although Bill did have to go back to work and I had to figure it out. I didn't go to the grocery store with all three of them until the twins were about 6 months old. I didn't really go anywhere for about six months because the twins were small, I needed to avoid the possibility of RSV, and Ellie wasn't a confident walker, so how was I going to manage in public? We easily did 30 to 40 diapers a day some days for a long time. Formula is $25 a can--and one can maybe lasted us a week? I don't even remember. The Target bills were just horrific.

And here's the upside--my twins were a decent size for their gestational age (4.9 and 4.5, in birth order) and had no medical problems. None. Helen came home at a week. Emma had one episode of heart arrythmia and had to stay in the hospital five extra days. That was it. No GI tubes, no heart monitors, no nothing. My c-section was standard, nonemergent, and I recovered normally. Yet I have met women at the rehab hospital where Ellie gets OT who had twins the same gestational week (33.5 weeks) whose children have cerebral palsy, are deaf, have seizures, had major heart defects, had collapsed lung, you name it. One woman lost one of her twins to bowel necrosis and the living child has epilepsy. This is aside from any trouble the mothers had after delivery, like hemorraging or other complications. And all I did was walk away with two super healthy kids, typically developing, and sassy as hell. I can't explain it. That's the miracle part, for me.

But what has happened in California...I don't think I would call it a miracle. I don't think I know what to call it. I think some serious investigating needs to be done into this doctor's decisionmaking process. I definitely think social services needs to be on call to get this family on track, because they do not even know what they are in for. Would I give this woman a psych eval? You betcha.

Just because science makes it possible for something to be done does not mean it should be done. I don't feel good about anything in this octuplet story. I don't think babies should have to start out life at under 2 pounds, in incubators, unable to be nursed or held. In a single or even twin situation, sometimes that happens, although doctors are really good at getting that NOT to happen. In a super multiple situation, over five or six babies, it's sort of a given. Is that fair to these children, to put them at risk for stroke, cognitive delay, major organ malfunction? Just because science said, We can do this?

Winter Fun, or, Lord, it gets cold here

No, I didn't take the kids out in -9 degrees. But as soon as the temp crept up towards 25, out we went on Sunday. The snow was powdery, so no snowman, but we had a good time flopping around and making snow food in their play house, which stays outside. Everything went great until Helen took off her mittens, got cold, got upset and cried, threw up from being upset and crying, and had to be put to bed at 11:30 am. The funny thing is that being in the snow is as fun as I always remembered it to be, and I regret not playing in it more every year. I won't make that mistake again.

Finally.

Sick by the numbers

This flu I have had is the sickest I can remember being in my adult life. I know that sounds dramatic, but I am not by nature a sickly person, and I don't count painful or lengthly post-childbirth maladies, even with a c-section, as being "sick." Here's the score on what has gone on since Wednesday, when this thing really blew up:

5 number of days I have been wholly incomprehensible, incoherent, and otherwise cognitively disengaged

8 number of pajama/housepant/tshirts that I sweated through, unsuccessfully, in an attempt to break my fever

8 number of showers I took to facilitate this effort plus get the fever gink off me, as well as drain my ever-pounding impacted sinuses

5 number of meals I ate, in order: soup, 1/2 a bowl of coco puffs (a mistake, and Emma ate the other half), toast (also a mistake, the texture of bread nearly killed me), soup, and soup

6 cups of tea, which went down ok, but because I wasn't eating anything, gave me a little heartburn on top of everything else

1 box of tissues

4 packs of nighttime theraflu, which saved me

3 kids who still love their unfun, sick mother

6 average number of daylight hours I was passed out on the couch or in bed

1 vaporizer, which like a birdbrain I didn't remember we had until today, when I should have been using it all weekend

1 great husband who took care of everything, and therefore saved my universe

Sick, or, Sick

I don't have a lot going on right now because I have the flu. The full body ache, fever, lay around the house flu. And yes, I got the flu shot, which my mother accused me of NOT getting (as if it's my fault that I am down for the count). I was sick enough that Bill had to take a sick day to care for the children, who I was absolutely unable to care for. Thanks, Bill. Everyone was happier for your efforts.

Happy New Year

In case you think all I do is follow the kids around and take their pictures, be assured that my plate is quite full with plans for the house this winter.

1. Refigure the basement. Here's the thing: we probably have a good sized working basement space (not counting the finished part, which is the kids' train room). But it's definitely not used efficiently. Bill had mentioned moving my washer/dryer over, building himself a new workbench (Family Handyman has plans for one) and then setting up a a dry goods/large cookware storage unit where his big, bulky, unwieldly so-called "workbench" is currently. Well, I'm all for it. I would like a nicer wash area, including a new slop sink. I would like big, sturdy shelving for stored can goods, soups, sauces, etc. (Sometimes Zagara's has sauce 5/$5.00. Well, who can pass it up? At the same time, who can store it? Exactly). I have an enormous lobster pot that has been inexplicably living in the attic because I have no where to put it. Insane. We need a better system. So this is hot on the agenda for me.

2. I think the time has come to admit that the main bathroom has to be dealt with. The wallpaper is peeling back, there's mold growing behind it (yes, it's visible, and yes, it's gross, and yes, I know it. Believe me), and the sink has a leak problem anyway. We have all the hardware for it--when Expo went out of business Bill cleaned them out of the hardware we knew we'd need for it. Well, I just don't think we can postpone it any longer. I posit that we strip the wallpaper, clean and Kill's the walls, and paint in one or two bright colors (I vote for deep cobalt and hot orange). Fix the sink, change the hardware, and move on. We are not talking a Groble-sized bathroom redo. That is not in the plans for...well, a long time. But we have been in this house now 7 years in February, and I believe that my patience for the floral-stripe-monstrosity in the bath has come to an inevitable end. I'm also hating the window treatment. So, the time has arrived.

3. We have built in cubbies just inside the side door (which also needs replaced). I have a yearning to get the junk out of them--this is stuff that should technically live in the garage, like car cleaning accessories, and planters, and fill dirt--paint them, and use them as a pseudo-mud room area for the kids' shoes, which now live in a planter basket in my living room. Yes. You read that right. Also insane. The cubbies we have are totally wasted on what we use them for. The children are old enough--and Emma is bossy enough--to be able to manage their own cubby for shoes, hats, boots, etc. and not trek filth through the house. Ellie does it at school! She can do it at home, and so can the little ones. This is also a project about which I am hot to trot.

Here are some links to my ideas. Enjoy.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/878025/index.cfm?clg=32&bnrid=3180501&cm_ven=FRO&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_pla=default&cm_ite=default

Colors: cobalt glaze, orange zest, sweet apricot and glacial tint from www.behr.com