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The story of Nadya Suleman and her ever growing family is still all over the news. People are still very curious about Ms. Suleman and what brought her to make the decisions she did.
Everyone is talking about the fertility specialist that treated her, how she is affording to raise her children, the government assistance she is receiving, how the octuplets are doing, and of course, that Nadya Suleman looks like Angelina Jolie!!
So, what do you think? Do you see the similarities?
I was thrilled when I heard on the Today Show this morning that David Goldman had finally been granted visitation and was able to see his son, Sean, after a very long 4.5 year struggle. I had to choke back tears as I listened to David Goldman being interviewed over the phone, especially when he described seeing his son again as “the most beautiful thing since seeing his birth.”.
This story really touched my heart when I first heard about last fall and I have been following it ever since. I couldn’t believe what had happened to him and everything he was going through to get his son back. For those of you not familiar with David’s story, he has been fighting to get his son back since 2004 when his wife (the son’s mother) took him to Brazil on what was supposed to be a vacation but never returned. David has spent the last 4.5 years fighting to get his son back. Sean’s mother passed away last year, which you would think would have meant David and Sean would be reunited, but instead custody of Sean was given to his Brazilian step-father. The whole thing is so sad and so ridiculous. For all the details on David’s story and to find out what you can do to help visit his website, BringSeanHome.org.
Of course, this is not the end of the fight. David is still fighting to regain custody of his son and finally bring him home. I’m so glad that he has finally seen his son after all this time. I can imagine hugging his son again after a very long 4.5 year wait was the best feeling ever. I wish David all the best in his battle to get his son back and hope it is all over soon.
With 2009 now in full swing I thought it would be a good time to bring to your the list of last year’s most popular baby names. Not many changes to the list, a lot of the names that have topped the list in recent years are still safely on the list.
Girls
- Emma
- Sophia
- Madison
- Isabella
- Olivia
- Ava
- Madeline
- Addison
- Hailey
- Lily
Boys
- Aiden
- Jayden
- Ethan
- Jacob
- Caden
- Jackson
- Noah
- Jack
- Logan
- Matthew
As always I will be anxious to see what names make the big list this year.
Did you have a baby last year? What name did you give your child, was it in the top 10?
When our daughter turned a year old we made the big purchase of a new convertible car seat for her. I had done a lot of research (I’m a little obsessed with researching baby gear!) so I pretty much knew I wanted a Britax. We took her over to our local Babies R Us to try out the different models to see which one suited us and her best. We settled on the Britax Marathon as it offered all the padding she would want, plus all the features we were looking for. After some careful online searching I found it for a great price and ordered it. It arrived about a week before her birthday. We tried it out inside first to see what she thought of it and to make sure the straps were in the right spot before we installed it in the car. As you can see it was a big hit!
Loving her new Britax seat.
A few of the features I particularly liked in the Britax Marathon were the HUGS shoulder pads that keep the straps from rubbing on her neck, the LATCH connector system, the multiple recline positions (especially since our daughter is still rear-facing), and that the harness was supposed to be easy to adjust. What ultimately lead to our purchase of the Britax Marathon was Britax’s unmet safety, but all the extra features were an added bonus.
We installed the seat in the rear-facing position as our daughter was not yet 20lbs (still isn’t actually). The recommendation is that a child remain rear-facing until they are at least 20lbs and one year of age (although extended rear-facing is highly recommended). Our daughter will remain rear-facing until she reaches the seat weight/height limits for rear-facing.
My husband did the honors of installing the seat. He was already pretty familiar with how the LATCH system works from installing our infant seat previously, so the installation went pretty smoothly. The manual that comes with the seat has great directions and illustrations for installing the seat with or without the LATCH system. I just have to add that I love the LATCH system, it makes installing any car seat so much easier!
The seat does come with a Versa-Tether, which is supposed to be used (according to Britax’s recommendations) at all times. However, unless you have floor connectors for the Versa-Tether (which we did not) it has to go around the top of the seat so it can attached to the anchors behind the rear head-rests, and would make it very difficult to get the child in and out of the seat. We opted not to use the Versa-Tether for this reason. However, if you do have the floor connectors, I would definitely use the system for the added safety. After the seat was installed we felt it was secure enough that we were OK not using the Versa-Tether. I will go ahead and use it when we finally turn the seat around to the forward-facing position.
The harness adjustment turned out not to be as easy as I had originally thought now that the seat is installed in the car. I have had to adjust the straps once since we installed the seat and it probably took me about 20 minutes. I am hoping that next time will be a little easier now that I am familiar with the set up. I found the straps were very hard to get out of the clip, especially since I didn’t have much room to work with. Perhaps now that I have manipulated the straps a bit they’ll be a little more pliable next time.
One of my favorite features of this car seat is the velcro used to hold the harness out of the way when you are getting your child in and out of the seat. It is one of the things I always complained about with our infant seat (Chicco Cortina Travel System). it was always such a pain to have to fish the straps out from under her. With the velcro on the straps and on the seat side you just undo the straps, stick them to the sides of the seat and you’re all set. Putting her in the seat is a breeze. I love not having to fish the straps out from under her any more, and she does too!
I don’t think there is really anything I don’t like about this seat, other than I wish it was a little easier to adjust the harness height. The Britax seats are a little pricier than the other options on the market, but as with everything in life you have to pay a little extra for the added safety and the name. I am happy with our purchase and our daughter is safe and comfy in her Britax seat.
If you’re in the market for a Britax Marathon, Amazon has their Britax Marathon Convertible Car Seat
on sale right now.
Since posting the news story about the arrival of California’s octuplets last week a lot of new information has come out. When I originally posted the article the big stories were that this was only the second set of live-born octuplets in the United States, all the babies were doing really well, and that the arrival of the babies had renewed debate over the ethical dilemmas surrounding fertility treatments.
My how the plot has thickened…
The grandmother of the octuplets has shared some very interesting information with reporters in the last few days. Including that the octuplets have 6 (yes I said 6) siblings waiting at home for them. They all live together in the grandparents 3 bedroom California home.
The grandmother advised reporters that the mom is a single parent and all of the children, including the octuplets, were conceived using IVF (invetro fertilization). This procedure involves harvesting a woman’s eggs (or using donor eggs), fertilizing them outside of the womb and then implanting the embryos into the mother’s uterus. In this procedure the number of embryos can be fully controlled by the doctor and strict guidelines exist about keeping the number of embryos implanted to a minimum to avoid a potentially dangerous high-order multiples pregnancy. Clearly the fertility specialist in this case choose to ignore those guidelines putting both mother and babies at risk.
In light the the clear ethical implications of the doctor’s decision I definitely think the medical review board needs to take a long hard look at this case and determine if the fertility specialist should be allowed to continue practicing. I mean, clearly he or she let greed cloud their better judgment. No fertility specialist in their right mind would agree to implant 8 embryos into this woman. They probably wouldn’t agree to implant 8 embryos into any woman, but especially not someone who already had 6 children, was not married, and lived at home with her parents. I think both the mother and the fertility specialist dodged a bullet on this one since all 8 babies were born healthy and are doing well so far.
I have to wonder who is footing the bill for the medical care for the octuplets. I don’t think it has been reported yet if the woman worked and we don’t know if she had private medical insurance. If not, then I would guess that California’s medicaid program is footing the bill for that babies’ very expensive medical care. Just another thing to debate about this whole situation. It is definitely going to open up the current guidelines surrounding fertility treatments for debate and discussion. I’m sure new, stricter guidelines will come about as a result of this story.
It will be interesting to see what additional information comes to light about this story in the coming days and weeks. I just hope the 8 little babies continue to do well and that all 14 children are well taken care of. All of those children deserve the best, regardless of the arguably bad decisions made by their mother. I can’t imagine what it will be like for this woman when all 8 newborns come home. 14 children is a lot for anyone to handle, but most especially when 8 of those are helpless little newborns, my goodness.