I was absolutely blown away by the number of hits this blog got after I posted my “Lazy shrew and breeder pig” post. I had no idea how many people Google the Duggars and the Gosselins. Especially the Gosselins. Especially Kate Gosselin, whom people (mainly women, from what I can see) apparently love to hate. The statistics program that tells me how people find my blog revealed a staggering number of searches for Kate+Gosselin+shrew, Kate+Gosselin+lazy, Kate+Gosselin+insane, and so forth.
Off-line, out in the real world, I got a visceral reaction to a casual remark about Kate Gosselin recently. I had taken my children to the park and there was a woman there who had twins somewhere between one and two years of age. We talked a bit, and I mentioned a friend of mine who had triplets a few years ago, and said something to the effect of, I know it must be incredibly hard, but just imagine what it’s like for those families with quadruplets or more, like the Gosselins with their twins and sextuplets. The woman at the park immediately retorted, “Those people are insane. No one should be having that many kids. I mean, it’s crazy. Don’t you think it’s crazy?” I didn’t say anything, because the only alternative to having triplets or sextuplets or whatever is to have selective reduction, and like Kate Gosselin, I wouldn’t have done it, would have taken my chances with the sextuplets despite medical advice to the contrary. From her reaction, I got the impression that perhaps this woman’s twins had started out as a larger set of multiples and she and her husband had decided (or their doctor had convinced them) to undergo selective reduction. My friend who had triplets was pressured by her doctor to reduce, and so was Kate Gosselin, as the Gosselins relate on their website. Another woman I know did undergo the procedure, allowing her doctor to abort two of her quadruplets so that she could carry twins to term. The twins were fine, but the mother later attempted suicide, and I cannot help but think that looking at her children and asking herself, “What if the needle had gotten this one?” might have contributed to the despair that drove her to try to take her life.
Obviously, there are a lot more people who hate Kate Gosselin than there are women who have undergone selective reduction of multiple pregnancies. Much of the antipathy stems from other causes: Kate’s a TV star and those women aren’t; Kate makes a lot of money off her kids and other women either think it’s exploitative, or wish they could make some cash from the kids themselves; Kate got a free tummy tuck as a result of the TV show, and the rest of us are just living with the ravages of childbirth; Kate gets testy and loses her temper on camera, and since nobody’s filming the rest of us, we can be sanctimonious and pretend we never do asinine things ourselves.
Comments 4
I agree w/much of what you wrote, but your statement: “because the only alternative to having triplets or sextuplets or whatever is to have selective reduction” is false. The alternative that you did not consider is that a women should not allow her doctor to implant more that 2 or 3 embryos, at most. Additionally, no doctor should be allowed to implant more than 2 or 3 embryos into any in vitro candidate.
The only reason that greater numbers of embryos are implanted is economical. Often 5 or 6 embryos are implanted with the expectation that only one or two will “take” and thus the parents will not have to pay for the expensive procedure more than once. The downside it that little embryo number(s) 4, 5, and/or 6 might not be wanted, but at least mum and dad saved a few bucks by going w/the volume discount. If laws were passed that allowed a maximum of 2 or 3 embryos then the problem of culling or having ridiculously large “litters” would be eliminated.
Finally, it is clear that you jumped to the conclusion that the park lady thought that a lady implanted w/5 or 6 embryos should have reduced. Perhaps she merely thought that the mother and/or the doctor should have used better judgment and not implanted so many embryos, since you didn’t ask her to clarify her statement we’ll never know(*) On the bright side at least you had something to blog about today.
*(maybe some of your readers who live in Santa Fe can track down all the house fraus with 1 to 2 year old twins who are stay at home mommies that hang out in parks in the middle of the day and ask the unasked question, I mean how many could there be this town?).
Posted 14 Aug 2008 at 4:26 am ¶Ah, yes, the Nanny State. Let’s do outlaw implanting more than 2 or 3 embryos. Let’s do make it impossible for anyone but the very rich to have children with the aid of fertility treatments. Obviously these “litters” are causing such terrible problems. Obviously Jon and Kate’s perfectly healthy sextuplets would be better off having never been born. Yes, let’s do pass those laws immediately. We can outlaw Crisco and chocolate while we’re at it, since fat people rack up big health care bills. We can also outlaw alcohol (since that worked so beautifully during Prohibition) and thus eliminate drunk driving. We can outlaw drugs and…oh, wait, they’re already illegal, I forgot. Oh yeah, let’s definitely make a law against owning a gas-guzzling SUV; it’s a Prius, a golf cart, or nothing. This is fun! Let’s see, what else can the Nanny State make us do for our own good?
Posted 14 Aug 2008 at 5:06 am ¶Please email me the Gosselin email if anyone knows it. I would like to ask Jon or Kate how many embryos were replaced when whe fell pregnant with sextuplets.
Posted 27 Sep 2008 at 10:42 am ¶Kate didn’t have embryos implanted as in in vitro fertilization. She had intra uterine inception. Her body was stimulated to make more eggs. Usually, they can try to control the amount of medicine and the number of eggs. If the doctor has any hint that there are more than 2-3 eggs, the patient should be encouraged NOT to have intercourse.
Of course, tell a woman, who is overly hormonal from fertility treatments and who desperately wants a child, that she has viable eggs in her body NOT to have sex.
It’s easy to point the finger now, but in the position, it would be very difficult to be that woman.
Posted 17 Oct 2008 at 5:50 pm ¶Post a Comment