Octomum dropping bombs: not good

Geez Louise.

We haven't heard much from Octomum lately but she's back in full force on two fronts 1) admitting to Us mag that she lost all 145 pounds of baby weight 'for the money' and also saying that she's not ruling out another baby in the future and 2) showing up on The View acting crazy like she hadn't taken her meds. She's so hyper on the show that Whoopi Goldberg asked: “Do you understand that some people think… maybe you’re not quite all there?” The audience applauded.

“I love your question,” Suleman responded.

OMG!

Octomum flaunts her post-baby bod

Wow! So we all know that Star isn't the most reliable of sources but in this cases, pictures don't lie. Nadya Suleman (aka Octomum) is looking unbelievable since giving birth to her babies just one year ago. She claims there was no plastic surgery involved and apparently has no stretch marks in spite of going from 270 lbs to 120 lbs post-birth. Can't say I love the idea of parading around in a bikini for a crappy tabloid photo shoot but if she really did it without surgery, well...dang!

Octomum drops her weight

Photo credit: splashnewsonline.com

Holy mother of octuplets! Have you seen Octomum!?

Like a pregnant version of a linebacker, Nadya hit 270lbs during her pregnancy and now she's back into her pre-baby jeans after a weight loss of 145 lbs without a trainer or surgery.

Losing 40 pounds immediately after delivering her octuplets, Suleman says she felt compelled to join a local gym after their birth. There, she fits in thrice-weekly midnight workouts (while a nanny watches over her sleeping children) with strength training but no cardio. "I get enough of that with the kids," Suleman, who gets by on three hours of sleep, tells Us.

Well, can't say that working out at midnight seems very healthy but I suppose it's better than dropping straight into the plastic surgeon's office.

OctoMom and other bits and pieces

Sorry it has been a few days, what an insane week. Teaching is exhausting at the moment so I apologise for silence on my end.

Anyway, I made it to Clunes (a small mining town near Ballarat) this past weekend where a number of antiquarian and second hand booksellers fill every available building in the town with books. I'm always on the look out for great pregnancy/maternity/motherhood stuff and this year I found a huge stack of Australian Women's Weekly mags from the 50s and 60s with some amazing ads for maternity clothes, infant formula and other hilarious enticements for women to really learn to love ironing. I will be scanning some of those images and posting them soon.

In other news, interestingly, it turns out that Nadya Suleman is getting into a bit of hot water over her continual 'exploitation' (in the eyes of California state law) of her babies as she has been contracting them out for photographs and other appearances. Turns out she might be in breach of child labour laws. Attorney Gloria Allred has filed a petition to appoint a guardian for the babies' estate, basically a party that will protect the financial interests of the babies.

"Rather than chose to provide her children with a normal life, their mother, Nadya Suleman, has chosen to commercially exploit them," Allred said. "We believe that the babies are entitled to remuneration since most of the compensation appears to be use of their images."

The goal, she added, is "to be sure that the babies receive their fair share of payments" and that their payments "be placed into separate accounts for them and preserved for them as required by law."

According to California law, when filming or photographing children, a nurse and credentialed studio teacher must be present and children -- ages 15 days to six months -- also can only be at the place of employment for two consecutive hours (between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. or between 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.). Infants can't work any more than 20 minutes each day.

Looks like OctoMom just walked into a whole lot of trouble...

Octomom strikes again

Could Crazy get any crazier?

Octomom is now trying to trademark 'Octomom'. Nadya Suleman supposedly didn't like the name (fair enough) but now likes it if she is going to make money off of it. Another Houston company put in an application to trademark the name more than a month ago but Suleman's lawyer says that the company has no legal rights to the word anyway.

Read more: Suleman seeks trademark

OctoMom and her brood on the tube

'OctoMom', Nadya Suleman is in the process of negotiating a reality tv series following she and her brood of 14 around as a way to pay her ever-growing bills (allegedly her formula bill is $2000 per month). Considering Crazy has already fired the free help she was generously provided with and is receiving donations on her website, the fact that she is now trying to sell herself and her children for her own poor decisions is pretty appalling. I don't know about you, but I have no interest in seeing Octo "dating, taking the kids to birthday parties, learning how to drive a 14-person van" as her lawyer has explained in defense of the reality tv bid.

Babies need to be looked after. They don't need to be on television.

Read more: Octo mom reality tv deal

Octuplet mum a pregnancy addict?

“I loathe pregnancy. I hate it more than anything else in the world,” Nadya Suleman told Dr. Phil on her continuing tour de media.

For a woman who is now in the possession of 14 young children, it is hard to believe that someone would choose to endure the physical hardships of pregnancy if they hated it that much. There has been some speculation that Suleman is 'addicted' to pregnancy, although there is no known condition. Rather, some experts have been suggesting that Suleman is in denial about her ability to parent these children appropriately when in fact, the reality is that she will need her own entourage to manage her brood. Dr. Drew Pinsky, best known for his love advice on MTV, but whom also is a psychiatrist and a parent of triplets himself, told Matt Lauer on Today that the situation that Suleman has found herself in is actually far more grave than has been reported:

"It’s not mere speculation, but a matter of life and death...With octuplets, you have to have six or seven people going 24/7 in order to prevent, frankly, the death of one of these children. It’s a really serious issue."

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29405752/

Yowza

Octuplets mum, Nadya Suleman just days before giving birth.

There are no words.

Source: http://www.tmz.com/2009/02/12/octomom-it-was-a-very-goodyear/

Octuplets mum raises vexing questions

I've avoided talking about the octuplets mum..until now. For those of you who have been outside the realm of the mass media, a California woman has given birth to octuplets by caesarean section. It has been revealed, however, that this woman has six children already. Having conceived through IVF, when given the option to selectively abort some of the implanted embryos, she chose to keep all of them. I won't get into the ethics of this on the part of the doctor as this has been written about extensively elsewhere. I find two things very interesting.

1) I wrote about infertility the other day and how the pressure for women in their 20s to start thinking about their ticking biological clocks is a precedent established historically by the new 'empowerment' brought to women in a post-feminist world. I noted that as soon as certain groups of women gain power in the public sphere, institutional powers-that-be remind women of their 'duties' as wives and mothers and all of these moral panics about fertility start to emerge. Ironically, the next day, we hear about the octuplets mum and her growing brood of 14 children. If this women, is clearly, if not a little overzealously, fulfilling her procreative 'duty', why is it that the many commentators have gone to great lengths to establish this woman's insanity? It seems that fertility is only desirable when you are a 'good' woman or a desirable candidate for motherhood.

2) Although the octuplets mum has wanted to remain nameless, according to The Australian today, the unemployed woman is seeking $2 million from commercial sponsorship and media interviews in order to defray the costs of her children. She apparently has Oprah and Diane Sawyer on board for interviews.

What do we think? Would the picture be different if the octuplets mum was 38, happily married and employed?

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24993121-2703,00.html