Nonplussed by Nonuplets!
Nine is Enough?
It’s Dr. Amber here with another question of medical ethics –
So the other day I was discussing prehistoric fertility art – as I do sometimes. My main squeeze – yes Dr. Amber has a squeeze who I’ll refer to here as MS (for main squeeze and not multiple scleroses in this case) – is something of a rock hound and clovis point collector. Ask him about the Anasazi and just pull up a papasan because… my dear reader you will be in for a treat and a half.
Anyhow – MS and I happened to speak over brunch about the Venus of Willendorf? – you ever seen this lady? now that is a real woman – she has more curves than a San Francisco avenue. No face though – men and their fantasy faceless ladies – they all have something – (not telling about MS’s proclivities – but early morning discussion of the Venus of Willendorf should give you some idea).
So imagine how I felt when the following day we admitted a woman pregnant with Nine and ready to pop – Noctomom. That’s what we dubbed her for the press. Now that’s a modern goddess of fertility – and she didn’t even need a man to pull this off – just some nicely donated sperm. And soon ladies, we won’t even need that – we’ll be able to synthesize that stuff using stem cells. Don’t worry MS we’ll still need you to kill the odd spider.
So because of a first class fertility clinic in Fresno there will soon be a full litter of little lads and lasses for the television to fawn over at our little hospice! What’s wrong with that? The more little ones means the more love, right? And love makes the world go round and that’s how you teach the world to sing… right?
However, it turns out Nocto can’t even take care of the kiddlets she already has – (Two others – and adding this nine puts her at an even 11 oh!).
I put it to the forum – what are the ethics here? Can we ban someone from using their eggs and scrambling them with a little love batter for the purpose of having a “man vs food” sized omelet of kids? Or does she have an unalienable right to squeeze out as many little dolls as she wants?
Niner Niner – something is very wrong here
Nurse Smilodon here – weighing in on the BIG Nine sitch. In the shadow of Octomom – who Dylan, my nine year-old, was sad to hear had eight babies and exactly zero tentacles. Hahaha Dylan is such a smart aleck. – he had this idea about Noctomom’s nine babies as a baseball team! Hahah oh that kid. He loves his baseball… and little Chloe’s bruises are healing nicely (thanks for asking Denise!)
Of course even baby birthing just has to be competition – let me tell you something Noctomom – having that many babies is just wrong. I don’t know how many nipples you have… but – unless this is Total Recall – it’s gonna be around two. How can you feed nine children the natural way? You can’t darling – you just can’t. Boobs just don’t grow that way – and you cannot get boobs with food stamps… oops. Did I say that? I said it. It’s on. Who you gonna call? – yer army of nine hemophiliac dwarves? Dylan and Chloe will beat their tiny easily bruised behinds in a ninja fight – if it comes to that – and I almost hope it does.
Already people are lining up to interview this fertile freak – listen – anyone can have kids – but who is going to take care of them while you are at work or out at the club picking up more sperm for your baster? Nocto-grandma? Now that’s just disgusting.
Nine lives – Hey… Like a cat!
What up, it’s the Feld, yippy yo yippy yay. I feel it’s time to get a take on these nine babies from an orderly. That’s right, you’re hearing from someone who didn’t go to “medical school”, as the doctors here like to call it. I think as everybody worries about the health of the mother and the babies and the ethical implications of all this, they’re missing the big picture: how strong will these kids be?
The answer: not as strong as they should be. Why? Because these kids have myostatin.
I’ll just come right out and say it: myostatin sucks. It’s a protein in the body that “regulates muscle growth”, which is a fancy way of saying, “limits the ammo available for the gun show.” I don’t want anything regulating my firearms, be they the ones in my hall cabinet or the ones attached to my shoulders. Luckily, there are ways to fight for freedom on both fronts: you can vote the NRA line and have your kids genetically altered.
I love muscle boy! When I have kids (well, more kids), may they be this jacked. If you weren’t lucky enough to be born with genetic defects, there may be a day you can fight myostatin with pills.
Go, Author L. Rea! I envy these nine new children, who might just have the opportunity to grow up in a myostatin-free world, where the only thing limiting how ripped a man gets is his own strength of will/inconvenient gym hours.
Admin – Re: Noctomom situation in brief
This is Errol Brasstacks. An administrator’s job is not only to make sure the trains run on time, but to ensure the trains run at all. Check that, he first needs to make sure the trains even exist, because trains are costly things. Of course, I use “trains” as a metaphor for “hospitals”, as in reality I am not involved in the railroad business (though growing up I dreamed of being a conductor and I sometimes wear the hat on casual Fridays). Recently I’ve been reminded how very simple it can be for everything to be brought to a grinding halt, regardless of whether your business is powered by coal.
One of the hardest challenges an administrator in any line of work faces is a sudden and unexpected expense. For instance, a woman gives birth to nine children. Such an occasion is remarkable, heart-warming, and pricey. How pricey? Such babies are born prematurely and, as a result, cost up to 15 times more than full-term babies:
15 times the regular price multiplied by nine babies = significant expense. The mother of the octuplets attempted to defray her costs by seeking donations. That approach will likely not be so effective this time for three reasons.
1. The bill is larger (there is one more baby).
2. The economy is worse (people have less money, for charity and everything else).
3. People inclined to give in these situations already gave to the octuplet mom.
Also there is a fourth bonus reason:
4. Lots of people were creeped out by the octuplet mom and now want nothing to do with mass-births.
What does this mean for us? For now, the cost of this event will need to be covered by the hospital and the mother’s insurance company. Their initial offer: they will help pay for three of the babies, but no more, as anything beyond that is just excessive and clearly not the sort of thing they agreed to cover (the fact they’ve already been born has been deemed irrelevant).
It’s going to be a long summer.
My well thought out comment is rather important.
By Vera Clincer
Firstly, allow me to congratulate the proud mother of nine healthy babies in her successful, completely elective, litter insemination. It is quite a feat to bring that crowd to term, and congratulations all around on that.
Unlike so many others on here, I would not deem to pass any sort of moral judgment on the matter. What people elect to do with their lives, whether they choose to have some cosmetic enhancement procedure or decide to have a nonessential optional body scan, is completely up to them. These are not necessities of circumstance; they are choices, and as such completely in the realm of aesthetics and tastes, and squarely outside the realm of ethical and fiscal obligations.
That being said, her unique situation, has brought some common hospital practices to light. They will be fully detailed in the coming audit, but just to address a certain egregious methodology… Non-Invasive Core Thermal Assessments (NICTA), at $20 a pop. With regards to the nonuplets, we have taken note that this particular procedure is administered every two hours, nine times (one for each patient), for a whopping total of $2160 a day. This, of course, caught our attention. After diligent research we have come up with an alternate procedure. So, please from this moment forth, refrain from administering the costly NICTAs and simply take the babies’ temperatures for the 3¢ per sterile thermometer cover.
Thank you.
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