Start listening at minute 12:18 to hear the story of the "Octomom".

Every now and then, a story comes up in the news that’s attention grabbing. One of these stories for me was about Nadya Suleman, formerly known as "Octomom," who gave birth to octuplets or eight babies back in 2009. Having eight healthy babies that survived birth in infancy landed Nadya, the mother, a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The fact that she had eight babies might make you think, wow. Is that physically and emotionally possible? What about after they’re born? How does someone take care of eight babies at once without going insane, let alone? How much does that cost? Well, it’s a great story, a very difficult one for her and one that was highly controversial within the United States for many years. I’d like to reconstruct that story for you, using information provided by the doctor. The Medical Board of California, various news sources and Nadya herself. I’ll also teach some interesting vocabulary. So take some notes if you’re interested in this topic. 

In 1996, Nadya Suleman got married. She had always dreamed of having a family and so in 1997, she began meeting with a doctor specialized in IVF treatment. IVF stands for in-vitro fertilization, which is considered a type of assisted reproductive technology. In-vitro means "in glass" in Latin and in-vitro fertilization is the process of fertilizing a sperm and an egg within a test tube or petri dish. Of course, outside of the human body. 

After fertilization, the embryo is allowed to grow in the artificial environment for 2-6 days before being implanted into either the uterus of the mother or of a surrogate mother.

Nadya went through IVF treatments with a doctor named Michael Kamrava, even after Nadya realized she wasn’t in love with her husband and broke it off. So she continued to go through treatments when she was single.

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