Just the 10 of us
I remember watching that show. I always thought it was an impossibility. Who would voluntarily have ten kids on a teacher's salary? Insanity does not even begin to cover this - especially with the kids they had.So last night I watched a show about a family with 8 kids. One set of twins (aged 5) and sextuplets (aged 16 months). Normally when you watch the stories about people with multiples, it's all about the scary pregnancy, the one kid who is not fully developed having setbacks, the craziness of the house. But it always glosses over the problems people face. The mother will say something like, "Oh we don't have any time to talk anymore or be together as a couple, but everything's just peachy." Or they'll say, "It's hard work but we can do it with this handy-dandy schedule." The couples are usually smiling, claim they never had any resentment or regrets about things and generally just pretend everything is great. This family was different.
They freely admitted that the day they found out about the 7 babies (she lost one early in the pregnancy) was the worst day of their lives. The husband must have been especially pissed because he hadn't really wanted another child at all. The father said that he immediately thought of their twin girls and how this would ruin the girls' lives. Flat out said he thought that it would destroy their lives. They refused reduction and had the kids.
Their lives changed crazily and the husband and wife were very open about the changes. The husband said he missed his wife's beautiful long blond hair which had morphed into being very short and brown. The woman's stomach was totally destroyed - it would be really tough to be turned on if you had to look at that (it looked like a really old person's butt was attached to her stomach). They also said it was always really loud. And were very straight when they said you don't ever get used to it.
I loved their honestly and them not trying to put on a happy face for the cameras. They were themselves and I think that they are probably the most functional family I've seen on this type of show. Even better in the follow-up episode, the mother got a free tummy tuck from someone who had seen the show and wanted to help. I don't think she could adequately express how excited she was about this development. Post surgery her stomach looked fantastic.
posted by E @1:09 PM