Canada's First Sextuplets

Started by Lise, Jan 09 07 09:33

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Lise

Oh boy. The diaper changes.... the mess..... the long hours.... times 6!! YIKES!!!

   [DIV class=titleimage][img id=storyphoto height=210 alt="Tina Otten (left), of Granite City, Ill., holds her son Jacob as husband Ron looks on. Otten said some of her children have emerged as being happier on their own, while others demand more frequent attention. 'Some are kind of loners, they want to do things on their own and not be bothered by anybody,' she said, 'but then I have some that are big-time momma kids.'" src="http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/media.canada.com/canwest/111/vs_sextuplets_us_090107_210.jpg?size=l" width=210 border=0]

[DIV class=clear]

[DIV class=first align=center][FONT size=1][SPAN id=storyphotocaption]Tina Otten (left), of Granite City, Ill., holds her son Jacob as husband Ron looks on. Otten said some of her children have emerged as being happier on their own, while others demand more frequent attention. 'Some are kind of loners, they want to do things on their own and not be bothered by anybody,' she said, 'but then I have some that are big-time momma kids.'[/SPAN] [/FONT]

[DIV class=view align=center][SPAN id=storyphotocredit][FONT size=1]Photograph by : Associated Press[/FONT][/SPAN] [/DIV]

   [H2]New parents face 500 diapers per week[/H2] [H4]Multiple-birth experts, parents eager to share their own experience about life with six new children[/H4] [H4][FONT size=1]Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun [/FONT][FONT size=1]Published: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 [/FONT][/H4]

 [DIV class=para12 id=article] Tina Otten didn't miss a beat on Monday before dubbing her life as the mother of one of North America's few sets of sextuplets simply as: "crazy."

 "That's all I can say," said the 32-year-old Illinois resident, who also has two other children. "They're nuts."

 Otten gave birth to the six babies -- three boys and three girls -- on April 9, 2004, nearly 10 weeks earlier than expected.

 Speaking in an interview from her home in Grand City, Ill., Otten was excited to hear the news of B.C.'s sextuplets, and quickly offered advice to the still-unidentified new parents.

 "I'd say schedule, schedule, schedule. Everything needs to be on a schedule," said Otten, who already had two children when the sextuplets were born, bringing her family to a total of eight children.

 "We had a feeding chart and a diapering chart. It just helped us to know how much they were eating and drinking in case we need to go up or down," she said, explaining she colour-coded bottles for each of the kids to help keep track.

 As news of the birth of B.C.'s sextuplets swept across the country Monday, several multiple birth experts and parents were eager to offer their own advice about life with six new children.

 "Certainly the financial outlay is going to be enormous," said Kerry Jang, a University of B.C. psychologist who works with numerous multiple birth families.

 Jang said financial issues rate among the highest concerns for new multiple birth families as they contemplate how they will afford such a big change.

 Otten said she and her husband -- who works at Ford Motor Company -- were buying about 500 diapers a week in the early days.

 She said that number has now come down to about 300 diapers per week, and her family has been able to make ends meet without problems so far.

 Still, Otten said, she worries about cutbacks at the local Ford plant, and about what might happen if her husband is laid off.

 "It hasn't been bad yet, but I'm sure it's going to be headed there if he gets laid off," she said.

 Gail Moore, spokeswoman for Multiple Births Canada, said on Monday the financial burden for families with multiple birth children can be quite onerous -- especially when the number is as high as six.

 "It's the exact same cost for each baby, so you just multiply it by six and my goodness, unless somebody is going to be a good community minded person and start canvassing all of the non-profit organizations and charitable groups, that family is going to be in a really bad way in the next couple of years," she said.

 In addition to financial worries, Jang said most parents of multiple birth children have trouble determining how to split their attention among the new babies, and how to give them each enough individual attention.

 "That question always comes up with every parent of multiples I've ever spoken to -- do I treat my kids the same, do I have to be exactly equal, or do I treat them differently?" he said in an interview Monday.

 In response, Jang said he tells parents to watch the kids as they grow to see what needs emerge.

 [FONT size=1]Source: [/FONT][A href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7132410c-c490-42a8-987f-c31d2adf8565"][FONT size=1]http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7132410c-c490-42a8-987f-c31d2adf8565[/FONT][/A]

[/DIV]
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby.

P.C.

Are they B.C.'s sextuplets?  She lives in Granite City, Illinois.  I wonder what brought her to B.C. to give birth.

  I cn't fathom in my wildest imagination what having 6 babies of the same age to care for.  [img style="CURSOR: pointer" onclick=url(this.src); src="http://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/more/bigs/c025.gif" border=0]

      I just can't.
Sir Isaac Newton invented the swinging door....for the convenience of his cat.

Lise

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Perhaps she has family here in BC and decided to come for a visit. She didn't think she was going to give birth as well. The babies are premature babies.
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby.

P.C.

OK....clearly I'm a bonehead.

  This story about this Otten woman, is not the woman who just gave birth to the sextuplets in Van.  It states there, that the Otten woman gave birth in 2004.  Sheesh....what was I thinking. [img style="CURSOR: pointer" onclick=url(this.src); src="http://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/smilie/liebe/g038.gif" border=0]
Sir Isaac Newton invented the swinging door....for the convenience of his cat.

Marik

My social studies teacher was talking about that today. He said 1 baby is enough, and 6 = unimaginable.
He jokingly added, "If I were the mother, I'd walk along the capilino suspension bridge and accidentally drop 1.. 2.. oh! 3 .. 4 .. 5 .. I'll keep this one, it fits into my pocket!"  ... whole class was laughing.
 

P.C.

I hope your Social Studies teacher never procreates.
Sir Isaac Newton invented the swinging door....for the convenience of his cat.

weird al

I'm sure it was no more than a bad joke, that a bit of reflection would have forestalled.

  Must have been a reference to Nadia Hama

  [A href="http://www.fathers.ca/nadia_hama.htm"]http://www.fathers.ca/nadia_hama.htm[/A]

P.C.

Hi weird al.....I remember that story.  I could never decide what I thought about that one.

  Yes, I'm sure it was only a bad joke.....and a bad choice of audience.
Sir Isaac Newton invented the swinging door....for the convenience of his cat.

interesting

[FONT color=#033d3d]Why was the parents' religion immediately given out?  [/FONT]

Lise

Oops. Didn't see the fine print there. That article was from 2004. There was another sextuplet delivery recently in BC which I meant to post. The parents, in this case, are Jehovah's Witness. Here it is:

  [img height=222 alt="Dr. Brian Lupton, chief of neo-natal care at B.C. Women's Hospital, right, speaks to reporters as Dr. Liz Whynot looks on during a news conference in Vancouver on Monday January 8, 2007 regarding the birth of sextuplets at the hospital this past weekend. (CP / Chuck Stoody)" src="http://images.ctv.ca/archives/CTVNews/img2/20070108/160X_presser_070108.jpg" width=160 border=0]   [FONT size=1]Dr. Brian Lupton, chief of neo-natal care at B.C. Women's Hospital, right, speaks to reporters as Dr. Liz Whynot looks on during a news conference in Vancouver on Monday January 8, 2007 regarding the birth of sextuplets at the hospital this past weekend. (CP / Chuck Stoody)[/FONT]



   [H3]Woman gives birth to sextuplets at B.C. hospital[/H3] [P class=timeStamp]Updated Mon. Jan. 8 2007 11:22 PM ET

 [P class=storyAttributes]CTV.ca News Staff

 A woman has delivered sextuplets at a Vancouver hospital this weekend, a rare event believed to be a Canadian first, doctors have confirmed.

 

 The four boys and two girls were delivered after just 25 weeks by C-section. Each weighs about 1.8 pounds, but a spokesperson at B.C. Women's Hospital said they are "in fair condition."

 

 The parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and do not want to speak to the media about the delivery and have requested to remain anonymous.

 

 "While they understand that there is a lot of public interest in the birth of their babies, they are feeling overwhelmed," said hospital president Dr. Liz Whynot.

 

 One of the sextuplets was delivered at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night and the rest were born Sunday morning.

 

 On average, babies born after 25 weeks gestation spend 100 days in neonatal intensive care, and about 80 per cent survive.

 

 Dr. Timothy Rowe, who heads the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of British Columbia, says the babies will likely have underdeveloped lungs and could even be blind.

 

 Lynda Haddon, a multiple birth educator, said raising sextuplets will be a daunting challenge for the parents.

 

 "There's a rollercoaster of emotions, from euphoria to fear," Haddon told CTV Newsnet.

 

 "Then there's the logistics: how are they going to fit in my car? What am I going to do with baby sitters? Am I going to have a life? How will I pay for them?"

 

 The B.C. Women's Hospital is the same one that delivered the conjoined twins of Vernon, B.C.'s Felicia Simms back in October. Her children left hospital just before Christmas.

 

 In the modern era, most multiple births have been attributed to the use of fertility drugs. Without drugs, sextuplets occur only once in several billion births.

 

 The Gilmour family of Saskatoon gave birth to quintuplets in 1999. Those children were conceived with the aid of fertility treatments. One child died in the womb, but the remaining five who were born survived despite arriving 11 weeks prematurely.

 

 The Gilmour quintuplets were reportedly only the eighth set of quintuplets in Canada since the famous Dionne quintuplets, who were born in 1934 in northern Ontario, long before the advent of today's fertility drugs.

 

 While the Dionne quintuplets were the first to have survived birth, their young lives became something of a freak show. The Ontario government seized them from their mother and put them in a special hospital where people could watch them play behind one-way glass.

 

 Their mother fought for nine years to regain custody. The three surviving women received a $4-million settlement from the Ontario government in 1998 as compensation for their early mistreatment.

 

 In 1974, sextuplets born in South Africa became the first to survive their infancy.

 

 News of the B.C. sextuplets' birth came as another sextuplet, John Van Houten of Hamilton, Mich., celebrated his third birthday.

 

 John's four brothers and sisters will have their birthdays on Jan. 16, while the youngest Van Houten sextuplet turns 3 a day later.

 

 With a report by CTV's Keri Adams and files from The Canadian Press

 

 [A href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070107/bc_sextuplets_070108/20070108/"][FONT size=1]http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070107/bc_sextuplets_070108/20070108/[/FONT][/A]

 
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby.

fletcher

 "In the modern era, most multiple births have been attributed to the use of fertility drugs. Without drugs, sextuplets occur only once in several billion births."

 The above I copied and pasted from the article posted above.  Does this mean this birth of these 6 children did result from the use of fertility drugs?  Or not?  Anyone hear that this couple used fertility drugs or another fertility method with the hope of becoming pregnant? It also seems like the parents had no idea there were 6 fetus's.  Which seems strange, too, by today's standards of medical care.  Perhaps being Jehovah's Witnesses there is a lack of medical care?  I really don't know and I don't understand why the media chose to inform us all of their religion.  If it were a Protestant couple I am sure it wouldn't have been mentioned.   Just seems strange to me unless there is a hidden meaning there which is really none of our business.

 


Russ

Fletcher, you are normally right as most births HAVE been attributed to coming about because of fertility drugs. Most twins or multiple births that occur these days are the result of people using fertility drugs.

  This sex(see pc I used it)tuplets batch is SOO amazing cause they did NOT use fertility drugs (according to the news anyhow). The odds are like one in 5 billion or something?
Mercy to the Guilty is Torture to the Victims

Lise

Well, Fletcher.... that's why everyone's so interested in this couple. They're Jehovah's Witness. Now if memory serves me, I don't think JW sanctions fertility drugs or contraceptive methods so why did this couple have sextuplets if not for extra help. Who knows? The mystery deepens. I feel sorry for the couple though. The first few weeks are the worst and they not only need rest but all the help they can get. The media storm around them will not help.
Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.
Bill Cosby.