I've noticed over the years that some people go into the fields where they actually need help themselves. It's particularly hard on the families of social workers and psychiatrists when the family practitioner could use counselling themselves. It looks like she is breaking new ground in the child development and welfare category. This woman has a lot of unhealthy issues that clearly weren't resolved by exposure to scholarship about childhood development or mental health counselling.

My son had a follow-up visit with his pediatric surgeon yesterday, and we got onto the subject of surgery in newborns (he does a lot of this--he removed my teen-aged daughter's spleen two years ago, but her surgery was delayed a couple of hours because he had an emergency surgery on a newborn with a heart condition). And we got into the subject of these eight. For someone who sees children in distress on a regular basis, he was very clear that the doctor who implanted all of those eggs should lose his license. "That procedure was done irresponsibly, even from a fertility clinic standpoint. They had no business implanting all of those eggs--a woman of her age who already has six children does not have a fertility problem." Couldn't have said it clearer, and the implication is, I think, that this woman is mentally ill and instead of hoarding cats or dogs is hoarding children.

She, in her madness, has put a huge stress on the local health care providers, on the money they must spend on long-term care for all of these tiny babies, and also, I think, on the family court and legal system. There will be a lot of scrutiny on this bizarre "family."

It was hard enough to deal with one child at a time home as a newborn, the thought that this one woman can raise all of these children by herself in just plain nuts. The child welfare folks need to keep a close eye on her from very early on, and maybe they can avoid a disaster. This is surely a train-wreck trying to happen.

SRS