The Curious Case of Nadya Suleman

I love a good mystery. I have since I was a child. I still wonder whether Oswald was the lone gunman, if Amelia Earhart will ever be found, and what really happened in Roswell, New Mexico on July 7, 1947. Nothing keeps me humble like knowing that there are still so many things I don’t understand.

These days, I can always count on the news media to bring me new things to ponder. My latest mystery involves Nadya Suleman, the woman who gave birth to octuplets last month. When the story initially broke, I marveled at this particularly rare occurrence. But that feeling of wonderment quickly shifted to bewilderment and bewilderment morphed into disbelief and disbelief into something else entirely: curiosity.

Curiosity is an essential element of all good mysteries. Curiosity is what compels us to read books by Sue Grafton and play board games named Clue and watch television shows called Lost.

Lost is perhaps one of my favorite indulgences. It is a serial drama about a group of plane crash survivors who live on a remote island. The characters have hidden, intertwined pasts and strange things tend to happen to them on this odd island. While Lost is a compelling (and albeit confusing) drama, it is also a mystery and with any good mystery, there are always questions.

In the Lost world, answers are doled out sparingly and for every question that is answered, at least two new questions arise to supplant the previous one. The truly remarkable part of the show, however, is its ending. Each week, an episode will end with a cliffhanger, plot twist, or some other paradigm shift the viewer cannot always anticipate. Some of the endings are genuine WTH moments that leave me speechless.

The Suleman story plays a lot like an episode- if not an entire season- of Lost. There are certainly enough plot twists and WTH moments:

• As the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a mother gives birth to 8 children. It is later revealed that she already has 6 children, each conceived via IVF.
• The mother, who is single, hasn’t held a full-time job since 1999. Yet all 6 of her children are less than 8 years old.
• The mother is diagnosed with a “depressive disorder” and believed to be “at some risk for suicide”.
• Although the mother was awarded over $167,000 in disability payments stemming from an injury sustained in 1999, her parents (in whose house the mother and her previous 6 kids all live) recently filed bankruptcy.
• The mother is on record as saying that she has not and will never accept welfare, yet receives $490 a month in food stamps.

Equally fascinating to me are the questions. I find myself wondering if it’s medically ethical to implant 6 embryos in a woman who already has so many children. I mentally debate whether a parent (single or married) can raise 14 children and not go clinically insane or broke. I consider the probability of two or more Suleman kids making an appearance on a future episode of Jerry Springer or Oprah. And I try to imagine the thought processes of this soon-to-be overwhelmed mother.
There are three things, however, that are more certainty than mystery to me with this curious case:

1. Nadya Suleman should not be permitted to have any more kids artificially. Ever.
2. No matter how noble the intention, a dysfunctional childhood is not an excuse to create what will likely become 14 more dysfunctional childhoods.
3. Ms. Suleman will receive millions of dollars from book deals, television interviews, a reality show or two, and at least one Lifetime movie. Some organization might even name her Mother of the Year. It sounds funny, I know, but stranger things have happened.

Hmm. Maybe I should give up on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and start thinking about whether it’s possible to impregnate a man with 6 embryos? Not that I have anyone in mind or anything…