Posted on 05/10/2005 1:27:46 PM PDT by Wolfie
Mother of sextuplets faces loss of Medicaid-funded nurse
WYOMISSING - A Berks County woman with year-old sextuplets and 4-year-old twins will appeal for continued nursing help from Medicaid beyond a one-year cutoff.
Kate Gosselin, whose husband has a 90-minute commute to a state job in Harrisburg, said she cannot safely manage eight small children.
The sextuplets - only the second set born in Pennsylvania and among fewer than 30 sets born worldwide - arrived 8 weeks premature but are thriving as they near their first birthday Tuesday.
"I will shout from the highest mountain that these are my children and I love them and I need help," Kate Gosselin said.
While the Gosselins appreciate the volunteers who streamed through their home in the early months, the children's routines improved with the arrival of Angie Krall, a licensed practical nurse who spends 30 hours a week with the family. Medicaid provides the temporary nursing support for premature babies, Gosselin said.
"She's fine-tuned and I trust her," Kate Gosselin said of the nurse, Angie Krall. "She's as good as a parent in this home."
The family cannot afford to pay Krall on their own, she said. Jonathan Gosselin, an information technology specialist who now works in the Gov.'s Office, was unemployed for much of last year.
Kate Gosselin said she feels society has a responsibility to help with the children, since modern medicine promotes the use of fertility drugs, which can lead to multiple births.
She has talked by telephone with Bobbi McCaughey, the Carlisle, Iowa, woman who delivered the world's only set of surviving septuplets in November 1997. McCaughey named the loss of privacy and the oversight of volunteers as among her biggest difficulties, Kate Gosselin said.
On the bright side, the Gosselin babies seem to have skirted the health problems that can plague premature babies and multiples. Each now weighs between 18 and 22 pounds.
"I look at six healthy babies and I feel a lot better, because it could be a lot, lot worse," Jonathan Gosselin said.
She wants society to bear the consequences of her taking fertility drugs?
Help her and who else? Everyone who uses poor judgment?
welcome to fr
Oh, and let me say...I do work with children. I teach. I have to watch day in and day out children who have parents how don't give 2 craps about their kids. I have parents who never show up, who don't return calls (and I spend time at my school some nights until 6 wating for a call from so-and-so.) and who don't even bother to give their kids lunch money so they can have a decent lunch or breakfast. I am the parent to 27 students...I didn't give birth to them, but I care about each and every one of them. I have difficulty sending them home when their parents don't care. I can't do a darn thing, except make their school life better. It's hard to love the kids who is standing in your face threatening to beat the crap out of you because you took something from them, but I care about those kids everyday. *I'm sorry that I was selfish enough to want to have children of my own to love. Shame on me for wanting that. I'm pure evil.*
you know, I can see why your mom referred you to this site, but frankly, feeling the frustration of having people like THAT breeding multiplicity more than once and then COMPLAINING ABOUT IT and saying that it's the responsibility of SOCIETY is not personally bashing you or anyone else that is fine w/ taking care of their own responsibilities. THAT is what this is about, not about trashing people who are more than happy to take on the quest themselves. No one is personally bashing you for your choices. You have to look at the entire situation. Read the article, then you might not have to jump to conclusions about where people are coming from on here.
The part of the article I don't get is the statement that society is responsible for the situation. We have been in the situation of considering fertility treatments and chose not to after a LOT of thought.
yeah, I don't get that either. I really don't see how people could actually think that. It's simply beyond my comprehension. Truly.
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