Having Litters: Not Just for Dogs and Goats Anymore!

Not actual woman in story; just a reenactment actor

A teacher in Tunisia has achieved the impossible:  making OctoMom look slightly less nutso by getting pregnant with a whopping TWELVE babies — and attempting to have all of them, despite doctors’ dire warnings.

The unnamed Tunisian woman, who is in her 30s, is reportedly expecting six boys and six girls after undergoing a — surprise!– fertility treatment.  According to British fertility experts, there is less than a one in 100 chance of even a single baby surviving.

The woman, however, claims to be in good health.

“All I want to do is be able to hug my babies and show them all my love,” she told hospital workers in the town of Gafsa, about 250 miles south of the capital Tunis.  “This is an absolute miracle, and we all feel blessed after struggling so hard to have children.”

Her husband, named only as Marwan, who teaches at the same school in Tunisia, gushed:

“In the beginning, we thought that my wife would give birth to twins, but more fetuses were discovered.   Our joy was increased with the growing number.  The medical team told us that my wife would give birth naturally.”

Not likely, say British medical experts, who warned that a natural birth would not only be impossible, but that the strain of carrying 12 babies could lead to labor at 20 weeks -– just halfway through pregnancy.

Peter Bowen-Simpkins, a fellow of Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said:

“It is certainly possible to carry 12 babies but not for long.  The problem is the capacity of the uterus.  This woman is going to be enormous by 20 weeks. And when the uterus goes into labor there is nothing you can do about it.  The youngest that babies have survived is at 22 to 23 weeks. They need very intensive nursing and the majority have permanent neurological damage.”

Despite Nadya Suleman’s “success” story, others have not been so lucky:  A 23-year-old Greek Cypriot who became pregnant with a then-record 11 babies in 1996 had to abort nine to save the lives of two.  In the same year a British woman, Mandy Allwood, 32, became pregnant with octuplets after taking fertility drugs.   She ignored medical advice to abort some and lost all after they were born at just 22 weeks.

Common sense:  not-so-common, after all.