Quote:
Originally Posted by FormerCaliforniaGirl
An illegal immigrant couple with six children were already living in poverty. Then the quadruplets arrived. They're still in a daze.
By Sam Quinones, Times Staff Writer
July 28, 2006
With two teenage daughters at home and triplets still in diapers, Angela Magdaleno's family overflowed from a one-bedroom apartment in South Los Angeles that they strained to afford.
Diapers had to be changed 15 times a day, feedings held every three hours. One triplet, 3-year-old Alfredo Jr., needed special attention because he was born with liquid on his brain and partially paralyzed. Even simple events ? like going to the store ? required complex orchestration.
And that was before the quadruplets arrived.
On July 6, Magdaleno gave birth to two boys and two girls, drawing national media attention as a bewildered mother of 10 (with nine living at home). Now, she and her husband, Alfredo Anzaldo, 44, must figure out how to provide for everyone on Anzaldo's maximum pay of $400 a week as a carpet installer.
"I was afraid," she said. "I still feel like I can't believe it."
U.S. immigrants' stories often are about reinvention and newfound prosperity, about leaving behind poverty and limitations.
But that is not Magdaleno's story.
Both Magdaleno and Anzaldo are illegal immigrants, settled for years in an immigrant enclave. Magdaleno has the same number of children as her parents, who were peasant farmers in Mexico. Like her parents, she is living in poverty and struggling to provide for her family.
"It's not sweet," said her 36-year-old sister, Alejandra. "It's very sad. The life for girls back there in Mexico is the same as the one Angela has now. They marry and have children, and that's their lives."
Neither Magdaleno nor her husband speaks English, though she has been in the United States 22 years and he 28. Even her teenage daughters speak mostly Spanish; their English vocabulary is limited.
Yet all of Magdaleno's 10 children are U.S. citizens. The triplets receive subsidized school lunches. All the youngsters have had their healthcare bills covered by Medi-Cal, the state and federal healthcare program for the poor.
Alfredo Jr. had been hospitalized all his life until recently. He's had three state-funded brain operations and will require several more, the family said. The couple receive $700 in monthly Social Security payments to help with his medical needs.
"
I thank this country that they gave me Medi-Cal," Magdaleno said. "There's nothing like that in Mexico."
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Please post the link to your "2006" LA Times story. Otherwise you are confusing people with the recent birth of octuplets:
Octuplets' mom was hoping for 'just one more girl,' grandmother says
Nadya Suleman, a 33-year-old mother of twins, octuplets and 4 other young children, loves being around kids and was not seeking fame or financial gain, her friends and family say.
By Jessica Garrison and Kimi Yoshino - Los Angeles Times - January 31, 2009
Nadya Suleman's goal in life was to be a mother, her friends and family said. That is why, even with a brood of six, including 2-year-old twins, she decided to have more embryos transferred in hopes, her mother said Friday, of getting "just one more girl."
"And look what happened. Octuplets. Dear God," Angela Suleman said four days after her 33-year-old daughter became the second person in the U.S. ever to give birth to eight babies at once.
Suleman stressed that her daughter "is not evil, but she is obsessed with children. She loves children, she is very good with children, but obviously she overdid herself."
Angela Suleman said all the children are from the same sperm donor, but she did not identify him. Her daughter is divorced, but Suleman said the ex-husband was not the father.
Suleman said she is caring for her six grandchildren while their mother is in the hospital recovering. She said she had few details about how the octuplets were conceived and did not know the identity of the doctor or the clinic that transferred the frozen embryos into her daughter's uterus. Suleman said it was not Kaiser Permanente, where the babies were born.
Fertility experts have raised concerns about the number of embryos implanted and whether the procedure was within medical guidelines.
"I cannot see circumstances where any reasonable physician would transfer [so many] embryos into a woman under the age of 35 under any circumstance," said Arthur Wisot, a fertility doctor in Redondo Beach and the author of "Conceptions and Misconceptions."
Doctors probably could not deny treatment to a woman simply because she already has children, he said. However, he added, they should have taken steps to make sure she did not have so many babies at once.
"I certainly think you can talk to her about it if you feel like she's making a decision that's not in her best interest or the interest of her children," Wisot said. "You can send her for psychological evaluation, but I honestly don't know if you can say, 'No, I won't take care of you because you have too many children.' "
Dr. Geeta Swamy, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, told The Times this week that the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advise doctors "to curb these higher-order multiple gestations," she said. "But it really is still up to the individual physician. There aren't any laws or legal ramifications to it."
The California Medical Board, which investigates doctors, and the California Department of Public Health, which licenses clinics and hospitals, said no doctors or facilities are currently being investigated regarding the births. It is also unlikely that the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services would get involved unless it receives a complaint of child abuse or neglect.
Allison Frickert, a friend of Nadya Suleman, said the mother was not seeking potential fame or financial benefit. "There was no overriding situation, other than having more children to love," she said.
"Her whole life, she couldn't wait to be a mom," Frickert said. "That was her No. 1 goal."
Friends and family also reported that Nadya Suleman worked as a psychiatric technician until she was injured on the job. Then she began having children and enrolled in school.
She graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 2006 with a bachelor of science degree in child and adolescent development, school officials said. She returned to pursue a master's in counseling, but last attended in the spring of 2008.
By juggling school and six children, Frickert said, Nadya Suleman proved to be "a lot more capable than the average person in handling stress."
She and her children live with her mother in a 1,550-square-foot home in Whittier, and her father has been working in Iraq as a translator to help support the family.
In 2008, Angela Suleman filed for bankruptcy, claiming nearly $1 million in liabilities mostly due to a bad housing investment, her bankruptcy attorney said. Suleman said Friday that she had withdrawn the filing and paid her debts.
As the media camped outside the house, Angela Suleman said in a telephone interview that she could not explain her daughter's decision.
Nadya Suleman has always loved children, her mother said. Then she sighed. "I wish she would have become a kindergarten teacher."
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