Gr8: Woman In California Gives Birth To Octuplets

A California woman has given birth to eight babies. Human babies! Doctors claim they were only expecting seven, but were surprised to find six boys and two girls all up in the woman’s womb.

Dr. Karen Maples, Dr. Harold Henry and Dr. Mandhir Gupta led the team of 46 people who helped deliver the octuplets. The babies were 10 43 a.m. and 10:48 a.m, the doctors said. The eight babies each weighed between 1 pound and 15 ounces to 3 pounds and 4 ounces. Like eight little rutabagas! Or something.

For those of us who are inclined to think, “THAT’S WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU FIDDLE WITH SCIENCE AND/OR RUTABAGAS!”, the director of the fertility problem at USC, Dr. Richard Paulson says such a high number of multiples is extremely rare. He also says, that usually, when a prospective mother is given fertility medication (as opposed to in-vitro fertilization), she will choose two of the fertilized eggs to ensure the resulting babies will have a higher chance of being health and, you know. Surviving to birth. He says that this is done to “make sure the two remaining babies will have the best chance at having good health. “To have all those babies, the mother would choose to have selective reduction. Apparently the mother made the decision to carry all the eight babies to viability.” 

And now she has eight times the diaper changes, runny noses, lice outbreaks, parent-teacher conferences and bouts of teenage rebellion to deal with. 

Octuplets born in Bellflower [LA Times]