A Smell Worse Than Three-Day-Old Fish

Yes, I am about to address the saga of Nadya Suleman, already a single mother of 6 who just gave birth to 8 more via in vitro fertilization. The initial news reports said the mother of octuplets wanted her rest and privacy, yet suddenly she's all over the media. She says she's never even considered her [obvious--Ed.] resemblance to Angelina Jolie, but within hours, the news is full of stories of the several emails she's sent to the actress. [She's also obviously had a lot of plastic surgery done to increase the resemblance, but until she learns how to sit up straight instead of hunched over in a pile, she'll never even begin to fake carrying it off.--Ed]

She claims to be able to support all her 14 children on her own, but is getting disability payments for 3 of the older ones, and Medicaid is taking care of the expenses engendered by the 8 preemies in the NICU, which according to news reports are over $2,300 per day. She says the same man is the biological father of all 14 but that by her choice, he's no longer in her life in any meaningful way . . . but later news reports suggested he bolted upon learning she was going to have 8 more on top of the 6 she already had. Some reports also suggested that there was more than one father involved.

She says that only one doctor did all the procedures to give her all 14 of her children, but reporters discovered that the doctor who helped her with the first 6 refused to help her have any more. [I am also very glad to know that the doctor who did do the in vitro that resulted in the octuplets is being investigated by medical authorities. I don't know of a single ethical doctor who'd do such a thing for an unwed, unemployed mother of 6. I bet the doctor who did is hoping to jump on the publicity gravy train, too. What has been reported about him to date is rather unsavory.--Ed.]

Her own mother called her decision to have the octuplets "unconscionable," though she's doing what she can to help.

What offends and scares me most about the entire mess, however, is how Nadya talks about her children. She says she will be there for them, will love them and will hug them. This is not how a mother talks about her children. This is how a child talks about her pets.

It stinks, especially for the children. She can't even keep their names straight as it is. The ultimate effect of her sick need to be the ultimate mother is that none of her children are going to grow up feeling loved and secure. They're going to feel as though they've all been lost in the crowd.