Dilleys Tackle Their Teens

Thirty thousand bottles and 20,000 diapers have passed since the country’s first surviving sextuplets entered the world. Now, 14 years later, the Dilleys children are high school freshmen in Indianapolis and tackling many of the issues familiar to teenagers.

America’s first surviving sextuplets recently turned 14 and entered high school.

(ABC News)
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From birth, “Good Morning America’s” Diane Sawyer has followed the lives of Adrian, Claire, Quinn, Ian, Brenna and Julian.

Parents Keith and Becki Dilley, who had tried for years to get pregnant before achieving success with aid of fertility drugs, have watched as their six children have transformed into distinct individuals.

Now the parents who once dealt with a dozen arms and 60 tiny little fingers that got into everything are today helping their children learn to shave and put on makeup.

Becki said she has no regrets about having six kids at one time. The trouble now is they are all growing up at once.

“I like having them all at once,” Becki said. “The only thing is they’re growing up so quickly. So, you kind of just feel like there’s this little clock ticking down all the time.” heir once bustling home, which was full of noises that echoed down the hallways, is much quieter today. Becki and Keith said it feels empty sometimes.

“Keith and I find ourselves alone a lot,” Becki said. “We come home, it’s like, ‘Where is everybody?’ And I say, ‘Well, they’re not expected home till 11:30 or so. ‘You mean we’re like by ourselves?’”

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Keith said he and his wife question what they should do in their empty home. But the couple can’t always rest or have free time.

In fact, Keith said the exhaustion that accompanied the job when the Dilleys were infants and toddlers hasn’t gone. It’s only changed. Instead of changing diapers and packing the kids into the minivan, today Becki and Keith act more like a weekend taxi service for their children, shuttling them to wherever they need to go.

“It’s changed,” Keith said.

It’s a different life now for the couple who raised their children without the help of a nanny or day care and who were strapped for money they couldn’t afford a newspaper or a dinner out. Becki and Keith would often collapse at the end of their exhaustive days.

Now their worries are of a different sort. For one, they wonder how to prepare to send their sextuplets to college.

“[We] asked their guidance counselors and we’re planning out kind of where they’re going to go to college and what classes they need to take. And it just seems like we’re on the down hill side of this,” Becki said.

The children no longer require coddling and have defined their distinctive personalities.

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In fact, Adrian, who was the sixth and surprise baby, still has the same fiery streak he did as a youngster. His siblings voted him mostly likely to get into trouble, a trait that showcased itself when he chopped off his hair just before a school photo shoot in elementary school.

According to his siblings, Adrian also is the one most likely to play a practical a joke on the Dilley household.

Julian, the most dramatic of the Dilley six, has changed from the toddler literally crying for attention into a teenager who likes wearing black and enjoys heavy metal music. Brenna, known as the nurturer of the group, has developed her angelic singing voice.

The once shy child didn’t hesitate to sing “Silent Night” for Sawyer and siblings in “GMA’s” Times Square studios.

Today poet and dancer Ian has ascended to the top of his class academically and sister Claire, who has a bossy side, can still be stern.

Even Quinn, who asked Sawyer to marry him when he was a child, has grown up. Now he has a girlfriend and Sawyer joked about how disappointed she was.

“I just can’t believe you’re going back on that commitment,” Sawyer said to many Dilley chuckles.

The group is a close-knit clan. Their lockers are lined up next to one another in school.

“I like to be [a] sextuplet” kid, Adrian said. “If you get messed with, you got five people to back you up.”

“You have someone there for you and they always help,” Brenna added.

Jon and Kate Plus 8: ‘Multiple Blessings’ of Twins, Sextuplets

For Kate Gosselin, having two sets of multiples under the age of nine wasn’t enough of a challenge.

The Gosselins, also known as ‘Jon and Kate Plus 8′ talked about their family and new book “Multiple Blessings: Surviving to Thriving with Twins and Sextuplets” on “Good Morning America.”

(ABCNEWS.com)

Between sending her twins to second grade and starting her sextuplets at pre-school — not to mention filming her family’s TLC reality show, “Jon and Kate Plus 8″ — Gosselin and her husband, Jon, somehow found time to write a book, “Multiple Blessings.”

“In the early years, so many people would say, ‘You need to write a book,’ and my joke was always ‘Oh yeah, in all my spare time, right?’” Kate told Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America,” where she appeared Thursday morning alongside Jon and the couple’s eight children: Cara and Mady, the two 8-year-old twins, and the 4-and-a-half-year old sextuplets, Aaden, Hannah, Alexis, Collin, Leah and Joel.

“Slowly [the book] happened,” she said. “Our goal was to record the memories before we forgot them … I didn’t care if it was never published. I wanted it recorded for the kids, for them to know how much they were wanted and loved. “

Having become an inspiration to so many parents who struggle with just one or two children, Kate told ABCNews.com that “Multiple Blessings” is really just a compilation of lessons she had learned, put down on paper for “moms everywhere.”

“We have lived through a lot — just about every situation you can imagine,” said Kate, 33, of her experience raising six girls and three boys at their central Pennsylvania home, where the TLC film crew comes three times a week for about two hours each day.

Often criticized for inviting cameras into their living room, Jon and Kate defended their decision, explaining that because they knew their unique family would garner attention no matter what they did, they opted to let the public into their lives on their own terms.

“Even if we would just go out in public we would be stared upon and looked upon,” Jon, 31, said. “It was an opportunity for us to show the world what it’s like.”

“To the critical people, a lot of times, we just say the major blessing to us that we never could have predicted or planned or worked toward was the fact that we can both work from home and have eight kids and provide for our family,” Kate added.

The show began when producers contacted the couple through their Web site. Two hour-long documentaries followed, and then, “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” now in its third season.

“Instead of people contacting us and doing news report after news report, why not let them into our house and let them see what it’s really like?” Jon said.

As for how long they’ll keep the cameras in their home, Jon said it’s up to the family.

“It’s always been a season-by-season decision,” he said. “We have a family meeting and we all vote on whether we want the cameras to stay.”

“Their childhood comes first,” Jon said, adding that as soon as the kids get sick of the limelight, they’ll kick the cameras to the curb.

Jon and Kate Gosselin Do It All, Times Eight

Even though the Gosselins may stand out as an atypical family, Jon and Kate say they face the same challenges as families who have just one or two children, leading to a large following of parents who are both inspired and fascinated by Kate’s ability to keep her household running smoothly. The thing that also surprised us was the fact that in the end, so many people are inspired by us,” Kate said. “It doesn’t matter if you have two kids or ten. Parents do this job over and over and over again every day. You just repeat it and repeat it. It’s the most worth it job ever. We’re having a blast.”

So how does she do it?

It’s all about organization, said Kate, who admits to being a control freak.

“My control is relaxing,” she said. “I’ve met my match. I’ve realized I’ll go over the edge if I don’t chill out a little bit. So the ‘me’ you see now is less controlled than the ‘me’ you used to see.”

For one, Kate deals with not just a few picky eaters, but eight, which has lead to her mantra known well by fans of the show: “If you don’t like what’s served,” she says, “the next meal is breakfast.”

“They don’t know life any other way,” said Kate.

Mady and Cara, the couple’s 8-year-old twin girls, played with dolls offstage while their mother demonstrated her favorite meat loaf recipe on “GMA.”

“I don’t like meat loaf,” Cara said, not shy to voice her opinion.

The twins say they prefer their mom’s blueberry cobbler and dad’s apple crisp.

Jon and Kate also make a point of spending time individually with each child, an important habit that Jon says the children look forward to.

“There is an errand rotation,” he said. “The kids always know who is next to come with just me — and not the other kids — the grocery store or the bank.”

As Eight Kids Grow Up, New Challenges Emerge

Amid the errands and cooking and the occasional nap, Kate says that she and Jon do find time to spend together without the children.

With the kids going to bed at around eight each night, Jon and Kate often retire to their newly-installed porch swing, where Jon says they “just talk.”

As for a date night, Kate says the closest they get to that is watching their favorite show, “Grey’s Anatomy,” together every week.

While having six newborns was a challenge, Kate said that even though the sextuplets are more independent now they are not necessarily easier to care for.

“It doesn’t get easier as they get older,” said Kate. “It’s just different.”

Kate said that while she used to just “plop them in car seats and go,” as they’ve gotten older they’ve become more outspoken.

“Now they can talk back to us,” she said.

But Kate said that as time goes on she has stopped sweating the small stuff — from sticky fingers to how she and Jon will pay for college for eight children. She says she tries her best not to worry.

“God got us this far,” said Kate. “He’ll get us the rest of the way.”

Sextuplets Celebrate Third Birthday

After this story aired on “Good Morning America,” K-Mart contacted the Hayes family to give them two $50 gift certificates to the store to help out with the sextuplets’ many needs.

Hayes sextuplets turn 3 years-old!

(ABC News)

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Sept. 14 means there’s a birthday in the Hayes household, six times over. Three years ago, Eric and Elizabeth Hayes gave birth to sextuplets.

Then they were six bundles of joy, now they are six individual toddlers with distinct personalities.

Rachel’s the Curious George of the group, E.J. is the shy one, and Ryan’s the most outgoing, who believes in sharing, until push comes to bite. While Tara prefers her alone time, Connor, the resident drama king, enjoys his time at center stage.

Rebecca is the only sextuplet who is struggling — she has cerebral palsy — raising all the questions about the consequences of fertility medicine.

The Hayes already had three boys and one girl when they decided to give parenthood one more shot, in hopes of a sister for their daughter. And, you know, we hit the jackpot,” Eric said. He explained that originally they thought they were having triplets, possibly quintuplets, but never sextuplets, until the third doctor’s visit when he held up six fingers to tell the lucky parents what they had to look forward to.

Even with the shocking news, the Hayes said they never considered selective reduction, a practice used to reduce the number of implanted embryos.

“You tell me right now, who you wouldn’t want to be here? Pick one, pick two, pick three, tell me. I couldn’t do that,” Eric Hayes said.

The older twins — 9-year-olds Kieran and Meghan and 11-year-olds Kevin and Kyle – do what they can to help with the often literally “dirty” half dozen.

The Hayes say the secret of each day is a constant schedule, gratitude and laughter, especially when it comes to watching shows like ABC’s “Super Nanny.”

“I like to see what kind of fools there are all out there ’cause we’re handling it with 10 and they have one and two and they — they’re going bananas,” Eric said.

Each day in the Hayes household means six loads of laundry, four runs of the dish washer and two full gallons of milk. But the biggest number is 120. That’s the decibel level of six crying babies, and it’s louder than a subway, an ambulance siren or a chainsaw.

“When they were infants all six of them would be crying and I would just stand there and I’d start to laugh because there’s really nothing you can do outside of, you know, crying,” Elizabeth said.

Ten cries, 10 laughs — one beating heart of a family.

Donations for the Hayes Family can be sent to:
Our Lady of Grace Church
400 Willow Avenue
Hoboken, N.J., 07030

100% of your donation will go to the Hayes Family. Make checks payable to “Our Lady of Grace Church” and please write “Hayes Family” in the notation. A tax statement will be sent to all donors of $250 or more.

For more information, call (201)659-0369 or e-mail:padrealex@yahoo.com.

Experts: Recess improves student behavior

As a pediatric resident in a hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., Dr. Romina M. Barros sat in on a regular first-grade class at a local elementary school. Classes started at 8:30 in the morning, lasting till noon, with one 10-minute break during which children were not allowed to talk or move from their chairs.

“It was winter, and I thought maybe they didn’t go outside because of the weather,” said Barros, now an assistant professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Children’s Hospital in New York City. “I had a headache.”

In fact, the children always had one 10-minute break but were not allowed to talk and had to stay in their chairs. There was nowhere for the kids to go outside and play, the teacher explained.

Barros has now published a study in the February issue of Pediatrics documenting the value of recess: Children who have it during the day behave better in class.”When we restructure our education system, we have to think that recess should be part of the education system, and if we have to get more help, we’ll have to get more help,” Barros said. “Even if we don’t have space, if they could have 15 minutes indoors. Unstructured time, that’s all that they need.”

Children learn as much on breaks as they do in the traditional classroom, experimenting with creativity and imagination and learning how to interact socially, experts say.

“Conflict resolution is solved on the playground, not in the classroom,” said Dr. Jane Ripperger-Suhler, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science and pediatrics at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatrist with Scott & White Mental Health Center, in Temple.

Recess is recommended at least once a day, for 20 or more minutes. Physical activity should also be part of this time. Most Asian elementary schools allow children a 10-minute break after every 40 minutes to 50 minutes of instruction, the authors stated.

Although it’s unclear how much recess children in the United States are getting, some studies have documented a dramatic decrease, and this study reported that the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has resulted in less recess for many children.

“They started to find out that kids in the U.S. were not doing well compared to other countries and started penalizing schools when kids weren’t passing the state test,” Barros explained. “That’s when schools (started to cut recess) not only because of space, but also because they wanted to put more in academics.”

Barros and her colleagues looked at a national database of about 11,000 8- and 9-year-olds. Children had one of two levels of recess: none/minimal (1 to 15 minutes/day) or “some recess.” The population was divided equally between boys and girls.

Kids with more recess behaved better in school, according to a teacher rating system.

The 30% of children who had no or only minimal breaks were more likely to be black, from households with lower incomes and lower education levels, to be living in the Northeast or South, and to be attending urban public school.

“The kids who are already disadvantaged in a number of different ways are getting further disadvantaged,” said Ripperger-Suhler.

Almost two-thirds of this disadvantaged group had physical activity only twice a week or less, putting them at greater risk of becoming obese.

“Children are receiving less than the recommended time or opportunity to engage in physical activity each day and this is especially true for lower income, ethnic minorities,” said Josh Langberg, an assistant professor of pediatrics for the Center for ADHD at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “There are some significant limitations of this study that make conclusions about the relationship about kids getting recess on their behavior difficult to make. .. this highlights the importance of further research evaluating does this indeed impact child behavior or does it impact learning.”

Mississippi most religious, Vermont least, survey says

WASHINGTON — Want to be almost certain you’ll have religious neighbors? Move to Mississippi. Prefer to be in the least religious state? Venture to Vermont.

A new Gallup Poll, based on more than 350,000 interviews, finds that the Magnolia State is the one where the most people — 85% — say yes when asked “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”

Less than half of Vermonters, meanwhile — 42% — answered that same question in the affirmative.Joining Mississippi in the top “most religious” states are other notches in the Bible Belt: Alabama (82%), South Carolina (80%), Tennessee (79%), Louisiana (78%), and Arkansas (78%).

New England predominates in the top “least religious” states: Following Vermont are New Hampshire (46%), Maine (48%), Massachusetts (48%), Alaska (51%) and Washington (52%).

“Clearly, states in the South in particular, but also some states in the Southwest and Rocky Mountains … have very religious residents and New England states in particular, coupled with states like Alaska and others, are irreligious,” said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of The Gallup Poll.

The reasons why, however, are far less clear, observers said.

For example, some might attribute the religiosity of Mississippi to the high percentage of African-Americans — long known for being comparatively highly religious — who live there.

“Mississippi is still No. 1, even if we look only at whites,” said Newport. “Whites in Mississippi are also very religious.”

Overall, Gallup researchers found that 65% of all Americans said religion was important in their daily lives. The total sample of 355,334 U.S. adults, including respondents with land-line telephones and cellular phones, had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. Some states had margins of error as high as plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Newport was surprised that one state — Utah — did not make the “most religious” list, given the state’s large Mormon population.

“They apparently have two kinds of people in the state,” he said. “They have the very religious and devout Mormon population but it also looks like they have a lot of nonreligious people.”

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, said Gallup’s findings reflect research conclusions from the upcoming American Religious Identification Survey, which he is working on with other scholars.

“New England is now slightly ahead of the Pacific Northwest in terms of the high rate of unchurched people,” said Silk, co-author of One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics.

Although evangelicalism may be making some inroads in Western states like Washington and Oregon, he attributes the predominance of New England states in the “least religious” category more other demographic trends in the Northeast.

“What we are finding … is a considerable drop in New England in the Catholic population,” said Silk, whose center is based in Hartford, Conn.

And it’s a matter of them moving away from the church, he said, not the region. “Catholics are holding their own nationwide because of Latino immigration but, relatively speaking, there’s little of that in New England.”

Silk suspects some Catholics have left the church because of the Catholic sex abuse scandal that first erupted in Boston, which “kind of pushed some sort of relatively loose affiliation Catholics over the edge.”

For his part, Newport said Catholics overall no longer are more religious than the average American — when it comes to stating the importance of religion or in attending church services —— but it’s hard to specify exactly why New England states figure so prominently in the “least religious” states.

“They’re about average and that’s a change,” he said. “It used to be you’d find Catholics significantly higher. … I don’t know to what degree that would affect what’s going on in New England.”

RELIGIOUS STATES Following is Gallup’s entire list of states, in order of what percentage of respondents said religion is “an important part” of their daily lives: • Mississippi: 85% • Alabama: 82% • South Carolina: 80% • Tennessee: 79% • Louisiana: 78% • Arkansas: 78% • Georgia: 76% • North Carolina: 76% • Oklahoma: 75% • Kentucky: 74% • Texas: 74% • West Virginia: 71% • Kansas: 70% • Utah: 69% • Missouri: 68% • Virginia: 68% • South Dakota: 68% • North Dakota: 68% • Indiana: 68% • Nebraska: 67% • New Mexico: 66% • Pennsylvania: 65% • Florida: 65% • Maryland: 65% • Ohio: 65% • Iowa: 64% • Minnesota: 64% • Illinois: 64% • Michigan: 64% • Delaware: 61% • Wisconsin: 61% • District of Columbia: 61% • Idaho: 61% • Arizona: 61% • New Jersey: 60% • Wyoming: 58% • Colorado: 57% • Hawaii: 57% • California: 57% • Montana: 56% • New York: 56% • Connecticut: 55% • Nevada: 54% • Rhode Island: 53% • Oregon: 53% • Washington: 52% • Alaska: 51% • Massachusetts: 48% • Maine: 48% • New Hampshire: 46% • Vermont: 42%

Octuplets’ Family Has Bankruptcy History Grandmother of Octuplets, Who Shares a Home With the Mom of the Eight Babies, Filed for Bankruptcy Last Year

Can the California woman who gave birth to octuplets this week afford to care for them? It’s a question being raised anew today with the discovery of court documents showing that the woman’s mother, with whom she shares a home, filed for bankruptcy last year.

A California woman gave birth to octuplets on Jan. 27, 2009, a multiple birth record for the second time in history. That means eight times as much love, but will it also cost eight times as much money?

(Getty/ABC News)

Neighbors told ABC News that the octuplets’ mother is single, in her 30s and already has six other children. She lives with her mother, Angela Victoria Suleman, who, according to public records, filed for bankruptcy in March 2008. The family lives in a three-bedroom home in suburban Los Angeles.

As of March, Suleman’s husband, apparently the octuplets’ grandfather, was working in Iraq, according to the bankruptcy filing. The couple’s combined monthly income was listed as roughly $8,740, but the filing indicated that Suleman expected their income would rise from her husband’s employment. It said that he would earn $100,000 a year. The document did not specify Suleman’s husband’s occupation, but Suleman told the Los Angeles Times that her husband was a contractor.

Suleman told the newspaper that her daughter had had fertility treatment but never expected the treatment would result in eight babies.

She said that raising 14 children “was going to be difficult.”

No matter what your income, giving birth and caring for octuplets is an expensive proposition. The infants’ delivery was performed by a team of 46 doctors, nurses and surgical assistants stationed in four delivery rooms at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in Bellflower, Calif., and it likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“You can think of it as an eightfold increase on a singleton birth,” said Steven M. Donn, director of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System. “By comparison, the mother’s care will probably be a bargain.”

Costs for the average delivery of a full-term pregnancy range from $9,000 to $25,000, depending on whether the baby is delivered by Caesarean section or vaginally. Eight times $25,000 is a whopping $200,000.

But Donn said the cost of the octuplets’ delivery likely exceeded that number because doctors prepared for the risks associated with a multiple-birth delivery.

“For reasons we don’t completely understand, risks with multifetal deliveries are greater than [normal births],” Donn said.

The medical costs for babies born preterm, like the California octuplets, which were born nine weeks premature, are also above average.

“The real significant costs come on the pediatric side, particularly when it comes to neonatal intensive care,” said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a maternal-fetal specialist at Duke University Medical Center.

A full-term pregnancy lasts from 38 to 42 weeks, according to the National Institutes of Health, and Swamy estimated for babies born at 30 weeks the hospital stay could be “anywhere from six weeks to six months.”

For an infant stay in a neonatal intensive care unit, costs can add up to “a few thousand a day,” she said.

“So we are looking at probably several hundreds of thousands of dollars for the family. If it is $100,000 per baby, for example, then it would be $800,000 for all eight,” Swamy said.

Studies have shown that the tendency toward prematurity and low birth weight in multiple-birth babies puts them at greater risk for a variety of complications, including respiratory problems at birth, cerebral palsy, birth defects, sensory disorders and even death. These risks increase as the number of babies in the multiple birth increases.

Dr. Richard Paulson, chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, agreed that multiple births are a problem that should be avoided at all costs.

“Even though this story has a positive spin, it should be seen as a very serious complication of fertility treatment,” Paulson said. “Patients who conceive octuplets would routinely be offered — even advised — selective reduction. I have to assume that in this case, the patients decided to try and carry to viability, and they were lucky, plus they got some really good doctors.”

Economic troubles bring many to the brink

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Elizabeth Gore, with a voice soaked in motherly calm, counsels her suicidal caller.

“You don’t want to live if you can’t find a job; I think we need to send you to an emergency room,” Gore suggests through her headset.

Gore is among the counselors at the County Mental Heath ACCESS call-in center. Counselors there reckon with Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate of 9.5 percent, among the worst in the nation.

“Well, it’s a big deal when you tell me that you don’t want to live if you don’t find something,” Gore stresses to her caller. “Do you realize what you’re telling me? I am not trying to preach, but that’s kind of frightening.”

“Lot’s of people don’t have jobs,” Gore continues with her caller. “You’ve applied for 200 jobs and only got one call back?”

“Well don’t get too dismayed and too discouraged,” Gore says. “We are going to get you some kind of counseling first.”

Gore hangs in there with her caller like a bent nail. The suicidal woman agrees to go to a psychological evaluation set up by Gore, at a nearby clinic.

Callers reach the counselors at 800-854-7771 for free. It’s the same number Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa firmly and clearly broadcasted, after the murder-suicide of seven people Tuesday in the working class neighborhood of Wilmington.

Erwin Lupoe and his wife, Ana, had been fired from their jobs a week before the Wilmington tragedy. But whether job loss stems from a firing or a layoff, the effects are traumatic.

“I don’t think it’s ever been this bad. Not in my tenure,” Gore said. “Because the people that we’re dealing with now, they have always had [money]. They went to school, they were able to get jobs. Now the jobs are not even out there.”

Supervisors at the call-in center say many of these calls are not strictly about mental-health issues, but deal with lapsed medical insurance, foreclosure, bank problems and unemployment benefits.ore is 70, a mother of five, with a master’s in Health Administration Management and eight years of handling callers over the phone.

Los Angeles County Mental Health executives say a rising number of people who make that 800 call speak only Spanish.

Maricela Velasquez takes many of the Spanish calls, talking and typing while a little figure of a guardian angel seems to watch over her keyboard.

The counselor says there are barriers, because a lot of Latino callers want help but need an education about therapy and mental health.

“They start telling me, ‘no soy loco,’ I am not crazy,” Velasquez explains. “They argue they don’t need to go to a home for crazy people.

“A lot of the [Spanish-speaking] families do call because they have lost their jobs, or they know a family member who has lost their job. We try to assure them that everything is going to be OK and that it is normal for them to feel depressed.”

Velasquez tries to help her some of her callers find the resources that can improve their employment situation, at times referring them to specific job training or job search sites.

And she and every other worker at this center want people to know, no matter how desperate and broke, that they can afford therapy.

As Velasquez points a caller to psychological help, one therapist is listed as costing between zero and $30 a session, depending on need. Another psychologist costs from $25 to $90.

The screen reads out the list of issues the therapists at clinics deal with, “child abuse, divorce, adult survivors of incest, family violence.”

Velasquez wishes Lupoe, the man who killed his family and himself in Wilmington, had called her.

“We would have intervened,” says Velasquez, who also has a masters’ degree. “We would have sent a clinician out there right away, within an hour, even sooner. And we would have to contact law enforcement to help us. Especially if he’s at the point of telling us at that time he would try to do something.”

The phone rings again. Velasquez, Gore and others start their duty of soothing tortured souls.

Often it’s as simple as getting someone to agree to lying down on a therapist’s couch, so they won’t soon lie down in a casket

Octuplets: Eight times the ethical questions

(CNN) — As more details of the mother who gave birth to octuplets come to light, ethicists are debating the moral quandaries involved.

The octuplets’ family’s home in Whittier, California, near Los Angeles.

The woman had six other children before the set of eight, which were only the second set of octuplets recorded in the U.S. The babies’ grandfather said Friday that his daughter wanted one more child and didn’t expect this to happen.

Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower Medical Center reports that all is well with the mother and children. Seven babies are breathing unassisted, and one is receiving assisted oxygen through a tube in the nose. Seven are being tube-fed donated breast milk.

It is unclear how this woman ended up with eight embryos in the first place.

Her mother told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that the woman had received fertility treatment and that she had embryos implanted last yearIf she went to a fertility clinic, there’s wide consensus from every single ethicist and fertility specialist that this was irresponsible and unethical to implant that many embryos,” said M. Sara Rosenthal, bioethicist at the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine. “This is an outrageous situation that should not happen.”

Doctors say that giving birth to extreme multiples comes with tremendous risks for both the mother and the babies. Risks for the children include bleeding in the brain, intestinal problems, developmental delays and lifelong learning disabilities.

In certain European countries, particularly Italy and Germany, the limit on the number of embryos allowed to be implanted at once is three, said Robert George, professor at Princeton University and member of the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. George advocated following those countries’ examples so that similar situations don’t arise and put the lives of mother and fetuses at risk.What you need are professional norms and legal regulations that restrict practices that are inherently very dangerous,” he said.

The woman’s mother told the Los Angeles Times that doctors gave the woman the option of selectively reducing the number of embryos, and she refused.

As to a “correct” decision at this stage, experts are split.

George said that, based on the information available, his personal ethical decision would probably support the woman’s choice to carry all the babies to term. But he said that selective reduction is not the same as traditional abortion because the goal is the healthiest possible birth rather than the termination of a pregnancy.

“The babies didn’t put themselves there; it’s not their fault,” George said. “There does seem to be a serious ethical question about killing one or more of them, even for the sake of maternal health.”

Rosenthal, on the other hand, questions the woman’s capacity to make a good decision under the circumstances. Some neonatologists believe that when pregnant women are told about dangers of prematurity or have great expectations about giving birth, their judgment can be impaired, she said.

The situation raises the issue of whether a doctor ought to override a patient’s wishes for the sake of saving lives, she said. Although the health care system in America gives patients autonomy in making decisions about their own bodies, when emotionally distraught, some people decide poorly, she said.

A doctor counseling a woman with octuplets may strongly recommend partial or full termination because of the risks to the mother and children. Even with triplets, a doctor would be “remiss if [he] didn’t tell a woman with triplets about selective fetal reduction,” said Dr. Scott Slayden of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. R. Dale McClure, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said in a statement Friday that the organization has been working to reduce the number of high-order multiple births resulting from in vitro fertilization treatments.

“If this resulted from an IVF treatment, we can say that transferring eight embryos in an IVF cycle is well beyond our guidelines,” he said.

The guidelines state that patients under the age of 35 would not have more than two embryos implanted “in the absence of extraordinary circumstances.” In fact, a woman in this age group with a favorable prognosis should have only one embryo transferred, the guidelines say.

The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33 years old, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“It would be extremely unusual, very strange and hard to believe that somebody who is a professional would put that many embryos into a woman who is 33 years old who has children,” Slayden said.

That she carried eight fetuses does not necessarily mean eight embryos were implanted, Slayden said. Four to 5 percent of the time, an embryo will split. As few as five embryos could have given rise to the eight children, he said.

Although it is “amazing” that the mother and eight children appear to be healthy, the story is somewhat dangerous for would-be mothers seeking fertility treatment, he said. They may see this example as a reason to take chances in attempting to birth extreme multiples, despite the large risks involved in such pregnancies and the rarity of their success.

The nanny who works with the octuplets’ siblings said Friday that the woman “adores her babies” and is “a perfect mom.”

Consumers’ mood improves slightly in January

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Consumer confidence rose to a four-month high in January, helped by optimism that President Barack Obama’s new administration might bring relief from a year-long recession, a survey showed on Friday.

However, the improvement was less than economists had expected and sentiment remained weak overall,

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its final index reading of confidence for January rose to 61.2 from December’s 60.1.

The final January reading is down slightly from the preliminary result earlier in the month of 61.9 and overall it remains in depressed territory, reflecting the deepening recession in the world’s largest economy.

“Consumers are panicked and confidence is shattered. Consumers may be less worried in January than December, perhaps because of lower gasoline prices and a more stable stock market,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Stocks briefly turned negative after the sentiment data, which only highlighted the headwinds facing the consumer-driven economy.

Government bonds — which generally benefit from signs of economic weakness — pared gains after the report. Bonds were on the back-foot after government data showed the economy’s contraction during the fourth quarter was much less severe than expected.

Economists had expected a reading of 61.9, according to the median of 63 forecasts in a Reuters poll.

The report showed inflation expectations rose, which might be good news considering that economists see a deflationary spiral lower in prices, wages and business activity as a distinct possibility given the unhealthy state of the economy.

One-year inflation expectations rose to 2.2 percent from 1.7 percent in December. Five-year inflation expectations increased to 2.9 percent from 2.6 percent.

Despite the increase in the overall sentiment index, consumers rated their current economic conditions worse than the month before, with this gauge falling to 66.5 from 69.5.

The University of Michigan confidence index dates back to 1952 and is still mired near the record low of 51.7 hit in May 1980.

“Nearly all consumers now anticipate the deepest and longest recession in the post-World War Two era, but consumers do not expect the economy to sink into a 1930s-style depression,” the Surveys of Consumers said.

The report noted the index had been improving from November’s 28-year low, the month of Obama’s election, and that consumer confidence often gains after big political changes.

It added: “These gains may be fleeting since the electoral promise may be trumped by the ongoing drumbeat of bleak economic news.”

Make that 14: Octuplet mom already had 6 kids

WHITTIER, Calif. – How in the world does a woman with six children get a fertility doctor to help her have more — eight more?

An ethical debate erupted Friday after it was learned that the Southern California woman who gave birth to octuplets this week had six children already.

Large multiple births “are presented on TV shows as a `Brady Bunch’ moment. They’re not,” fumed Arthur Caplan, bioethics chairman at the University of Pennsylvania. He noted the serious and sometimes lethal complications and crushing medical costs that often come with high-multiple births.

But Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg, who has fertility clinics in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, countered: “Who am I to say that six is the limit? There are people who like to have big families.”

Kaiser Permanente announced the mega-delivery Monday in Bellflower, with delighted doctors saying they had initially expected seven babies and were surprised when the cesarean section yielded an eighth.

Multiple births this big are considered impossible without fertility treatment, but the doctors who delivered the babies would not say whether 33-year-old Nadya Suleman had used fertility drugs or had embryos implanted in her womb.

However, the children’s grandmother, Angela Suleman, told The Associated Press her daughter resorted to in vitro fertilization because “her fallopian tubes are plugged up” and she had trouble conceiving.

She said her daughter, who is unmarried, conceived all her children that way and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager.

Fourteen grandchildren later, Angela Suleman expects her daughter is finished with fertility treatment.

“It’s over now,” she said. “It has to be. It can’t go on any longer. She’s got six children and no husband. I was brought up the traditional way. I firmly believe in marriage. But she didn’t want to get married. So she got the in vitro.”

Doctors at Kaiser Permanente said Nadya Suleman first came to the hospital when she was 12 weeks pregnant and rejected an offer from doctors to abort some of the embryos.

More common than in vitro among younger women is the use of fertility drugs that stimulate egg production; doctors are supposed to monitor budding eggs and stop the drugs if too many develop.

Some medical experts were disturbed to hear that the woman was offered fertility treatment, and troubled by the possibility that she was implanted with so many embryos.

Dr. David Adamson, former president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, said he was bracing for some backlash against his specialty.

In 30 years of practice, “I have never provided fertility treatment to a woman with six children,” or ever heard of a similar case, said Adamson, director of Fertility Physicians of Northern California.

Women seeking fertility treatment are routinely asked to give a detailed history of prior pregnancies and births, and “it’s a very realistic question to ask about someone who has six children: How does this fit into the concept of requiring fertility treatment?” Adamson said.

Nadya Suleman’s fertility doctor has not been identified. Her mother told the Los Angeles Times all the children came from the same sperm donor, whom she declined to identify.

However, birth certificates reviewed by The Associated Press identify David Solomon as the father of Nadya Suleman’s four oldest children. Certificates for the others were not immediately available. Nadya Suleman’s first six children range in age from 2 to 7.

Records show that she held a psychiatric technician’s license from 1997 to 2002. It was unclear whether she is now employed.

It was only the second time in U.S. history that eight babies survived more than a few hours after birth. The six boys and two girls were said to be in remarkably good condition but were expected to remain in the hospital for several more weeks.

The mother of the octuplets lives with her parents in a modest, single-story home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb of about 85,000. Children’s bicycles, a pink car and a wagon were scattered in the yard and driveway.

Court records show Angela Suleman filed for bankruptcy last March, but after she failed to make required payments and appear at a creditors’ meeting, the case was dismissed. She reported liabilities of $981,371, mostly money owed on two houses she owns in Whittier.

The births were a hot topic of conversation on the Internet, with many people incredulous that a woman with six children would try to have more — and that a doctor would help her do so. Some criticized the doctor and suggested that the mother would be overwhelmed trying to raise her brood and would end up relying on public support.

Jessica Zepeda, who identified herself as a friend of the mother, said the woman and family would have enough money to raise 14 children. “She is not on welfare,” Zepeda said. “She is an awesome mom, and will be able to take care of her babies.”

Several doctors said it is not their role to dictate family size.

“I am not a policeman for reproduction in the United States. My role is to educate patients,” said Dr. James Grifo, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the New York University School of Medicine.

But Caplan said not enough attention is paid to the well-being of the children in high-multiple births. Such babies are often premature and underdeveloped, and are almost always found to have some health problem.

Caplan said everyone has a stake in mega-multiple births because they cause insurance premiums to rise when hospitals cannot get reimbursed for the huge costs such babies incur, and because those with disabilities typically require social services.

“To say all you need is cash and the will to have more kids should not be a sufficient standard to access services,” he said. “It is insufficient for adoption. It isn’t sufficient to be a foster parent. Why would it be sufficient to run down to the fertility clinic to get embryos transplanted or super-ovulated?”

A few years ago, Caplan and others did a survey of U.S. fertility clinics. They found few had policies for deciding whether to help a woman get pregnant. Most clinics said they had patients meet with financial coordinators, but only 18 percent had them see a social worker or psychologist.

With in vitro fertilization, doctors frequently implant more than one embryo to improve the odds that one will take. Mothers-to-be who are found to be pregnant with several babies are given the option of aborting some of them to increase the chances the others will survive.

The U.S. fertility industry has guidelines on how many embryos doctors can implant, with the number varying by age and other factors. The guidelines call for no more than one or two for a generally healthy woman under 35, and no more than three to five, depending on the embryos’ maturity, for women over 40.

If eight embryos were implanted at once, that is “well beyond our guidelines,” Dr. R. Dale McClure, president of the reproductive medicine society, said in a statement.

Clinics that clearly violate guidelines can be kicked out of another group, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, which in turn affects whether insurance covers their services. But the guidelines do not have the force of law.