What is her story? Where is their father? Has she not heard of birth control?
These and many more inappropriate thoughts you wouldn’t dare share with the struggling mother, but would most definitely with your girlfriends later on that day, inevitably cross your mind.
Yet, these scornful glances and critical whispers are not new for the young mother. She has been the butt of many a Comedy Central stand-up joke and PTA lecture since she decided to pop out that fourth baby while still subsisting on government cheese.
But, now, she and many others in her situation are in good comedic company as
the story of one Nadya Suleman inundates our broadcast frequencies from sitcoms
to school board hearings.
From
Sausalito to Syracuse, we have seen the face of this 33-year old octo-mom who
has now - since the recent birth of her
eight babies – brought a total of 14 children into the world.
The
delivery of the octuplets, via a scheduled Caesarean section, involved 46
medical personnel, and was practiced twice beforehand at the Kaiser Permanente
hospital in Bellflower, California. The infants (six boys and two girls) were
born at 30½ weeks of gestation, approximately nine weeks premature. They ranged
in weight from 1 pound, 8 ounces to 3
pounds, 4 ounces.
As
sordid as conception in the backseat of a Chevy might seem, this would have
been many people’s chosen method rather than hear of her medically assisted
procedure introduced by California doctor Michael M. Kamrava. Last year, Suleman resorted to In Vitro
Fertilization using a single sperm donor supposedly named "David
Solomon" (a male friend of Suleman) to father all of her children.
“What
I want to know is what void is she trying to fill by having all these babies?”
said Dr. Norma McPherson, literacy coach at P.S. 81 in Brooklyn, NY. “And,
there is no real man to speak of.”
Just
like McPherson, many are dubbing her pregnancies Suleman’s own peculiar method
of healing from her failed marriage in 2001 and the three miscarriages she had
during that time.
When
asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show about his daughter's rationale for having 14
children, father Edward Doud Suleman, said: "Now, I'm no psychiatrist, but
I question her mental situation."
Edward Doud Suleman, identifying
himself as a 67-year-old former Iraqi military man, says he is returning to his
native Iraq as a translator and driver in order to financially support his
daughter and her children. Nadya’s mother, 69-year-old Angela Victoria Suleman,
a retired teacher, has been helping to look after the first six children. She
has indicated in recent public statements that she is overwhelmed, stating that
her retirement check is gone as soon as it comes and that her daughter has not
contributed toward housing or food costs.
Before knowledge of the octuplets
became public, Suleman had been living with her children and mother in a small
three-bedroom house in Whittier, California. Property records show the Suleman
house in mortgage default and could be sold at auction in May. Suleman's
parents filed for bankruptcy in 2008 claiming nearly $1 million in liabilities
and abandoned another home in late 2007. As of February 2009, Suleman was
receiving $490 per month in food stamps along with disability payments for
three of her six previous children.
While mockery and ridicule are
hurled at Suleman here in the States, one must wonder if it is the prevailing
western view that has tainted our view of motherhood which should be adorned in
glory and splendor. Would she receive the same kind of ridicule in Iraq, in
Israel, or in the Congo?
The use of IVFs, the absentee
husband and the financial instability, notwithstanding, when a woman mothers
more than three children in Western society, her neighbors’ eyebrows begin to
raise.
Lakisha Trader, a woman in her
twenties living in Brooklyn, NY, claims that her being a mother to 10 children
is rarely celebrated in her community, even though she is married to the father
of them all. The information is usually accompanied by gasps, incredulous nods,
or looks of horror.
“But, when I take my kids to
their Jewish pediatrician, the fact that I have that many children is the
norm,” she said. “They love big families.”
Just as in the Holy Scriptures, a
Jewish person believes a fruitful woman is cause to rejoice not snicker or
stammer. Barren women in The Old Testament such as Sarai and Hannah wept and
prayed day after day for God to bless their wombs. It was, and still is, a
great honor to mother children in the Jewish tradition.
The Suleman pregnancy is ironic
in an age where Evangelical Christians, right-to-lifers of all faiths and
Planned Parenthood proponents are embroiled in fierce debate.
Wouldn’t one expect a person of faith to be far more supportive of a
woman who is bringing forth life, not cutting it short? Or has the IVF
procedure exempt her from receiving this kind of support?
As it stands, many would claim
that a woman’s career and success in industry has overshadowed the blessing of the
fruit of one’s loins. Moreover, Western society’s obsession with leisure and
early retirement has finally trumped the desire of being blessed with a large
family, for with it comes labor and time and attention to ensure that they’re
not all screw-ups.
Well, Nadya Suleman has stepped
up to the plate. Let’s pray she hits a home run!