The Joy (and Danger) of Six

Within 10 hours of each other on June 10 and 11, two sets of sextuplets or sexes (if quadruplets are quads, and quintuplets are quints, then they are sexes, plus it's a palindrome) were born, one set in Arizona, one set in Minnesota.

The Minnesota sexes were born to a 24 year old mother, Brianna Morrison. She was given a drug called Follistim, which stimulates the ovaries to produce an egg. But sometimes there is an over-response and too many eggs are produced.

That's probably what happened here but she was only 24 years old. And unless they diagnosed a serious fertility issue they probably rushed into fertility treatments. I know it was probably very difficult for this couple who had been trying for about a year, but really a year isn't all that much time. Poor, little Elisabeth Hasselbeck also spoke out about the trouble she and Tim had conceiving their second child, after trying for about a year. For reasons none of us understand some people have a hard time getting pregnant, and a year may seem like forever when you want a child, but it really is only 12 maybe 24 or 36 tops, days of prime fertility. It probably was irresponsible for the Morrisons to seek fertility treatments at that point.

But that's just the beginning. The doctor approached the Morrisons about selective reduction, which is basically aborting the fetuses down to a manageable number, like 2, maybe 3. This is done to increase the likelihood that the surviving fetuses will be born healthy, at full term and not jeopardize the health of the mother.

But the Morrisons are committed Christians who met at Bethany College of Missions (and are against abortion) and decided to leave it in God's hands. I don't mean to be flippant about a serious topic, but God did the selective reduction for them. The babies were born at 22 weeks, weighing in at 11 to 20 ounces. Three of them died, and the other three are still in neonatal intensive care (NICU). Babies born before 22 weeks have a less than 10 percent chance at survival so their 50/50 shot is actually beating the odds.

And here is my main problem with this whole thing, if you are going to believe in God and trust God's will, then stick with it. When they couldn't get pregnant, THAT was God's will. Instead they claimed God led them to the fertility doctor. And now they have three kids who probably will never be healthy, whose health was sacrificed for three kids who didn't make it anyway.

The situation in Arizona is a little different. The mother, Jenny Masche (Mah-shay) was older, 32, they had been married for 3 years, she'd had 2 miscarriages and she was artificially inseminated. The insemination combined with the fertility drugs led to 6 fertilized eggs. The Masches also turned down selective reduction due to their belief in God. Their sextuplets came at 30 weeks giving them a very good chance at survival, but the mother almost died. She had acute heart failure during delivery because there was so much blood in her body to support the fetuses.

Masche was worried that selective reduction would cause her to miscarry again but she did give God the option to reduce them on his (or her) own. She was also heartened by septuplets born in Iowa in 1997. All 7 are still alive today, but 2 of them have cerebal palsy (one of the afflictions babies from multiple births are more prone to than the average kid). To Masche this sounded like good news, a 29% chance of cerebal palsy wasn't enough to convince her to listen to her doctors.

I don't wish to sound unsympathetic, I read this line in an article about their two previous miscarriages: "Twice, the couple felt the pain of seeing an ultrasound that showed no heartbeat." If anyone can relate to that it's me. Mrs. Poop and I underwent the same thing, thankfully the second time in our case was a false alarm. But I don't think that pain should lead you to make bad decisions or to defer them all to God.

I'm also getting a sour taste in my mouth about the way the Masches are handling the situation. They've set up a website (the address of which I feel compelled not to disclose) to ask people to help as they "feel called." Basically, it's them asking for people to help this "young Christian couple" by providing diapers and other supplies and of course money, for their new litter.

By the way, it must be very hard to come up with 12 baby names, here's what the Masches chose: Bailey Elizabeth, Savannah Jane, Molli Grace, Cole Robert, Blake Nickolas and Grant William.

All 6 are doing pretty well right now except Cole who was put back on a breathing machine.





This post may sound very critical and it is. I don't agree with what these parents did, specifically their selective trust in God's will. But I want these 9 children to grow up to be happy, healthy people who contribute something to our society. But I don't want them to become a shining example for the wonders of having mega-multiples. Remember, it's a vagina not a clown car.