Eight is enough

As I struggle to get two children under nine, up and dressed and breakfasted in time for school each morning, I marvel at those mothers – my sister included – who are dealing with multiple babies and toddlers. As soon as a child learns to crawl life gets very hectic, very quickly. These women are inspiring. Selfless. Amazing.

A mother-friend of mine once joked, “You spend the first two years of your child’s life teaching them to walk and talk, and all the years after that pleading with them to sit down and shut up!”

So just how is life going to change for the Californian woman who yesterday gave birth to octuplets? Six boys, two girls: weighing between 1.8lbs and 3.4lbs each. Initially only expecting seven babies, the eighth, Baby H, surprised all concerned. Somewhat disconcertingly, Dr Harold Henry, chief of maternal and fetal medicine at the hospital, asserted: "It is quite easy to miss a baby when you’re anticipating seven babies. Ultrasound doesn’t show you everything.”

The mother, who remains unnamed, spent the last seven weeks of her thirty-week pregnancy within the confines of the Kaiser Permanente hospital in southern California. While she’ll be released in a week, her babies will spend the next two months growing under the watchful eyes of hospital staff.

It’s unclear from reports whether the couple has other children, but the theme song for the ABC’s seventies sitcom, Eight Is Enough, is certainly playing loud and clear in my head!

Click to hear what the doctors have to say...