I'm really not sure what to make of a daughter who allows her mother's home to go into foreclosure while that daughter is in the market for a $1.2 million home. I know they're just working the system and mother will likely live with daughter, but dang... that just sits wrong.
If she is to remain in California, a home large enough to fit 14 children, even if they're sharing 4 to a bedroom, it will be a hell of an expense. $1.2 million begins to sound frugal when you're looking at homes that large. If it weren't for California's assistance programs, their family's extreme expenses would likely push them out of the state.
Here's an article in the UK Telegraph that mentions the older siblings of the octuplets and their disabilities. Only one disability is listed, stating that it has been reported that one has autism.
Quote:
Miss Suleman had previously claimed that she was raising her family without any government assistance. In an interview with NBC Today show host Ann Curry, the 33-year-old from Whittier, California said: "I'm not receiving help from the government. I'm not trying to expect anything from anybody. I just wanted to do it on my own."
The Los Angeles Times reported that she is paid $490 (£335) a month as part of California's food stamp programme, and an unspecified amount of federal assistance for her three disabled children.
Michael Furtney, Miss Suleman's spokesman, explained the apparent contradiction by saying that his client did not consider the payments to be welfare. "In Nadya's view, the money that she gets from the food stamp program ... and the resources disabilities payments she gets for her three children are not welfare," he said. "They are part of programs designed to help people with need, and she does not see that as welfare."
Mr Furtney did not specify which kinds of disabilities her children are affected by, although reports have claimed that one suffers from autism.
Miss Suleman is facing fresh criticism after reports emerged that taxpayers may be liable to foot the bill for the octuplets' birth and hospital care.
The Los Angeles Times claimed that the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Centre is requesting that the multi-million dollar cost of caring for the infants - who were born nine weeks premature on January 26 - be paid by a California health plan for the poor.
The delivery alone involved a 42-strong medical team, and is estimated to have cost $1.3 million (£889,000), and the babies remain in the facility's neo-natal intensive care ward. The final cost of their treatment is expected to exceed $3 million (£2.1 million).
Questions have also been raised about the clinic responsible for all of Miss Suleman's pregnancies, which records show had an "absurdly low" IVF success rate, it has been claimed. In 2006, the West Coast IVF Clinic, which is run by Dr Michael M Kamrava, recorded only five pregnancies out of 61 treatments, and only two of those resulted in births. One of the births was Miss Suleman's twins.
Fertility specialist Dr Mark Surrey told the paper the clinic's numbers were "absurdly low".
"These are the worst numbers I've ever seen", he added.
All of Miss Suleman's treatments resulted in pregnancies.
Dr Kamrava has yet to comment on the furore surrounding his clinic's decision to implant six embryos in a single mother who already had six children. Two of the embryos split, resulting in Miss Suleman giving birth to octuplets
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Dateline reproted that of the six siblings, one has ADHD, one has Autism, and one has a speech impediment.
What frustrates me is the lack of sound judgement that comes along with birthing more children when you already have one with autism and another with an extreme enough case of ADHD to receive disability assistance. Those two conditions are a HANDFUL, just on their own - why add more to the mix?