Utterly Disgusted

Last year my husband and I met with a fertility specialist as we considered the options of using fertility treatments to help us start a family. We did a lot of research before meeting with the doctor and had a list of questions prepared for the doctor and the staff at the fertility center. We also spoke with our insurance company and our financial advisor. The goal of any fertility treatment is to have one healthy baby. However, there is a possibility of multiples which you must be prepared for financially, physically and emotionally.

We chose a doctor who would make every effort to be conservative with treatments and would drastically reduce the chances of 3 or more babies at once. We learned that there are several different types of treatments from the minimaly invasive such as prescription drugs to the maximum invasive in-vitro fertilization. Fertility treatments should be looked at as a path to achieve a desired result. You start with the easiest and least expensive treatments and give them a chance to work (3-6 months) until you move on to a more expensive and extensive treatment. Because making the decision to have children is so definitive, most people stick to a treatment plan with some commitment. Before beginning fertility treatments, we knew we would like to be in a financial position where we would not have to limit our treatment options just because of money. This basically means that we would need to save up about $35,000.00 before we could begin. It would be fantastic to achieve a pregnancy after one month on a prescription, but you have to plan ahead. Each month of in-vitro costs $10,000.00. There is a program where you can pay $30,000 up front and get 6 months for the price of 3 (of course if it works during the first or second try, there is no refund - kind of a gamble.)

Last week we all heard of the woman in CA who gave birth to octuplets (that's 8 babies)! These 6 boys and 2 girls will join their 6 other siblings at home next month when they can survive without medical assistance. In total, this woman has given birth to 14 children in the past 8 years. ALL of them were conceived through in-vitro fertilization....seems insane, but hey some people want big families.

If people can provide for and care for these children, I would not have an issue with this. I would love to have a big family (big to me is 4-5 kids) but I would want to make sure that I could care for each and every child financially, emotionally, and physically. Having children is not a right, it is a responsibility.

This woman is a single parent. She lives with her mother and father in a 2 bedroom home. She conceived all of the babies through a voluntary sperm doner and in-vitro fertilization. She has a 3 year old autistic son. 1 year and a half ago, she and her parents filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the home that they were living in. She has no job. She is on welfare. She did not pay for any of her fertility treatments. (We working taxpayers paid for it for her. Let's say that each in-vitro worked on the first try. She has then had at least 6 cycles of IVF which totals at least $60,000.00) She is not paying for any of her medical care. (There were 52 doctors present to deliver her babies and they will all be in the hospital for at least 1 month to continue development before going home. This is a multi million dollar medical bill that we taxpayers are footing the bill for.) From birth through age 18, this woman will receive $171,926.00 per child from welfare or $2,406,064.00 total (almost $2.5 Million). The woman's father is planning to return to his native country of Iraq to try to earn money to send back to CA to feed these kids. Why do we allow this to continue? Why do we allow people like this to suck off of the system? Why would any doctor allow in-vitro to a woman who does not have a home or a job? Why would you bring 8 more children into a home with 6 children (1 with special needs) who are not currently being properly provided for?

There is currently a bill in congress trying to get approved which would not allow people with 3,000+ square foot homes to write off their taxes or interest as these homes would be considered energy wasters. (Don't even get me started on that one!) Yet, the government will continue to pay all of the bills for an unemployed single woman to have and raise 14 children.

Then there are people like me. People who would be extremely grateful for the opportunity to have one child. For people like me, we need to come up with $35,000 of our own money just to give it a shot. And, if even by accident, we end up with more than one baby, we are completely responsible for paying for and taking care of these babies on our own (which I am more than willing to do.) We have stable careers, a committed marriage, a decent home, and have paid into taxes and insurance since we got our first jobs. We have never taken advantage of the system in the forms of unemployment, welfare, etc. Don't get me wrong. If we chose to go this route in the future, we will be committed to it and we will not complain about the bills, etc. But if this is the going rate for fertility treatments, it should be the going rate for everyone.

It's people like this moron woman in CA that drive up the cost of fertility treatments for everyone else. It's people like this woman in CA who take up our tax money and raise the rates for medical care to the rest of us paying customers. I am utterly disgusted by this abuse of the welfare system and I am utterly disgusted that it continues on. No one caught on after she had the first 6 kids? Now she has 14. I hope there is a follow up story as to whatever happened to these 14 kids, 18 years from now. It's not their fault that they were brought into this world. I will keep them in my prayers. If any of them were up for adoption there are probably a lot of willing people who could give them a much better shot at life than their loser mother will.