The XX Factor: What women really think.

More Adventures in Fertility Freakshows

Bonnie, your continued fascination with octomom Nadya Suleman reminds me of the most recent headline-grabbing baby story: England is all atwitter with news of Alfie Patten, the 13-year-old father of newborn Maisie. Impregnating a fellow teen (the mother is 15-year-old Chantelle Steadman) in middle school isn't necessarily tabloid-ready news, but Alfie clocks in at around 4 feet tall and looks like he's about 8 years old. Alfie's notoriety might have just been another flash in the sordid tabloid pan, but according to the AP, his tween parenthood has reignited the teen pregnancy debate in the United Kingdom. Britain's teen pregnancy rate is among the highest in Europe, though it's still far lower than the United States'.

Alfie's story broke last week, and today the Daily Mail is reporting that the wee teen is demanding a paternity test on the advice of his father. In addition, two other minors have stepped up to claim paternity of Chantelle Steadman's baby girl. One could dismiss both Suleman's and Patten's stories as tabloid trash, but both tales have gained traction in the mainstream media. Richard Lawson at Gawker posits that celebrity baby mania has created a greedy gaping public maw that yearns to be filled with any and all baby news. I guess people need something to distract them from the economy until Brangelina decide to adopt a South American to round out their brood.

Baby, Baby

Well, Jessica, maybe people are riveted to these shows the way they are riveted to every reality show: At least I'm not as crazy as they are! Or, in the case of the mean nanny shows, at least my house isn't as bad as that!

And Bonnie, forget what the woman herself was thinking: What was the doctor thinking? It should be medical malpractice to  implant eight embryos, given the extreme probability of premature births leading to crippling disabilities—especially if the woman says in advance that she would not be inclined to reduce the number if they all implanted.

Eight Is Too Many

At first, the media and medical establishment  tsk-tsking over irresponsible fertility treatments seemed a bit, er, premature in the coverage of the California woman who delivered eight babies totaling over 16 pounds at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower, this week. None of the relatives had spoken to the press (despite the many TV bookers undoubtedly camped out in their Whittier cul-de-sac since the birth of the six boys and two girls was announced Monday) and the delivery team, who have not been as camera shy, would not comment on whether the mother had had prenatal medical intervention. Yesterday, an "acquaintance" told reporters the still unidentified new mother, who lives with her mother and father while her husband is stationed in Iraq, has six more children, including a set of twins, at home. The new arrivals, who were delivered from her distended uterus in about five minutes, brought the number of family members who will occupy a three-bedroom home to at least 17. It seemed unlikely to me that the overburdened woman would turn to assisted reproductive technologies to enlarge her family, especially given how expensive and only fractionally insurance-covered fertility treatments are.  I thought perhaps the 32-year-old woman was just preternaturally fertile. Her generation has been environmentally exposed to so much chemical estrogen and other fertility-inducing substances, I reasoned, and litter-sized multiple births could be a harbinger of things to come. But we learned today from the Los Angeles Times, who coaxed the grandmother, Angela Suleman, to the phone that fertilized embryos had indeed been implanted in her daughter 30 weeks ago and to her surprise all of them "took."  I am normally not one to question another woman's reproductive choices, but I can't help wondering, what was she thinking?