Nadya business

As you undoubtedly know, there have been TONS of opinions stated on numerous blogs (and news sites and at Tupperware parties and at the water cooler and in the break room and....) concerning the infamous Nadya Suleman...or as she is better known now: "Octomom."

As it as been stated elsewhere...it is reeeeeeally easy to be hypocritical and judgmental as to this woman's choices for conceiving her 14 children. Certainly, I would not wish to be in her shoes. She has a long and daunting future ahead of her and I must say, it takes a strong woman to defend her circumstances under all of the pressure of raising those kids...not to mention outside pressure from the media, her community and society in general.

It has been especially hard for J and I to cast any sort of opinion or views of our own on this woman. If you think she's crazy, maybe you think we are too. J and I had desires to start a family almost immediately after getting married. We were married in August, and certainly by Christmas...or Thanksgiving, we were starting to plan for "trying." After a couple of months of heartbreaking moments with pregnancy tests, I decided that something was probably wrong and I needed to go see my GYN. After getting blood work done, I received a call saying that we needed to go see a fertility specialist because I was not having a complete cycle every 30 days and this needed to be remedied before we could actively conceive.

I went through a battery of tests, and it turned out that all I needed to do was to take a pill (Clomid) that would "jumpstart" my reproductive organs and give me a cycle. We were made aware of the side effects of such treatment, including the chance of multiple births. Well, needless to say, Clomid worked the first time for us, and with no real side effects (other than drowsiness and a little nausea). Even something as simple as the treatment plan that we were prescribed can have unintended results and known risks.

I think there is some weight to what people are saying about the doctor in Suleman's case. He should hold some responsibility for the outcome of Suleman's treatment. But have him provide any kind of support to her and the children now? That's just kind of silly, isn't it?

This is one of those areas that are not black and white; it is a total grey area. If you cast opinions and judgments on one part of it, you are casting those same opinions on the whole of it. I hope that society's opinions of IVF, IUI and other fertility treatments are not affected after this, but fear that they may be. I hope that this doesn't make it hard for women and/or couples to seek any kind of fertility treatment for fear of being judged or thought of as nutty.