If the CEO of Babies R Us had a wet dream, it would look like this.

November 13, 2007 10:59 PM

Twins are common enough to have conventions, and even higher order multiples have online support groups. Up to fifteen fetuses have been carried by one woman at once thanks to the magic of fertility drugs (and while no sets of 8 or more have survived, the McCaughey septuplets and two other sets of seven have). Humans are even capable of superfetation, and one set of girls was born after being conceived three weeks apart. But what if you're pregnant with more than sixty fetuses of varying ages, all at the same time? Then you're this woman.
posted by InnocentBystander (35 comments total)

Hoping, hoping, hoping this is a hoax, for her sake.
posted by davejay at 11:05 PM on November 13, 2007

I really wish I could find more info on that Ramona woman beyond her terribly-impossible-to-read blog. It's like she's shouting at me "I have 67 fetuses!!"

I mean, sure, I'd be shouting too - but what else ya got on this woman? (or similar cases) cause I've never heard of this superfetation thing. My googling isn't returning anything on her.
posted by revmitcz at 11:25 PM on November 13, 2007

Fecundity: delicious.

Also: classy headline
posted by lalochezia at 11:33 PM on November 13, 2007

revmitcz, see the tags. I don't think this woman is, you know, actually pregnant with crazy gazillatuplets or whatever.
posted by InnocentBystander at 11:35 PM on November 13, 2007

Honestly, this is the first thing that came to mind.
posted by -t at 11:37 PM on November 13, 2007

@innocentbystander : That's about what I figured, but the world's a crazy, crazy place. So, ya know, helps to check. I mean - why else mention it in a FPP?
posted by revmitcz at 11:49 PM on November 13, 2007

Starts here for the lazy, continues here, and that should be enough for most.
posted by dhartung at 12:00 AM on November 14, 2007

I think it was the mother of the McCaughey septuplets who said that when she found out she was pregant with seven babies, that she "thought God was punishing us".

I'd think the same, and I'm an agnostic.
posted by orange swan at 12:03 AM on November 14, 2007

If you read this post and this one, it's pretty clear that this poor woman is mentally ill.

I hope she gets help.
posted by Avenger at 12:16 AM on November 14, 2007

dhartung this is (I think) the true end of this story.

This woman needs help. The most disturbing part to me, honestly, is either the fact that she already has two (I think, its hard to tell, but at least one and most likely two) real, actual daughters, and that she's apparently being considered as an adoptive parent to a "sibling group".

I love Metafilter, but I'm not sure that mocking truly crazy people is what this site should be about.

Sorry to be a killjoy.
posted by anastasiav at 12:17 AM on November 14, 2007

That last link is sad as hell.

(But, did you notice? it's ALL CAPS. You don't actually have to even read any of it to know she's mentally ill...)
posted by From Bklyn at 12:28 AM on November 14, 2007

Gotta be a hoax.

Gotta be.
posted by mediareport at 12:31 AM on November 14, 2007

she sold her birthrate for a pot of messages!
posted by bruce at 12:44 AM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

So humans are evolving so that they get pregnant like cats?

Well, at least this explains the backward-pointing spikes that have started to develop on my wenis.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:01 AM on November 14, 2007

HURF DURF flagged as offensive. Just because you tagged it as "lolcrazypeople", it doesn't automatically become ironic and cool.
posted by roofus at 1:03 AM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

You forgot the twin porn.
posted by stavrogin at 1:05 AM on November 14, 2007

Best wishes to mom and every one of The Brood.
posted by tula at 1:20 AM on November 14, 2007

It's not a clown car.
posted by Poolio at 1:25 AM on November 14, 2007 [2 favorites]

Honestly, this is where my head went first.

Here's hoping we stop short of that kind of advancement.
posted by Rocky Dennis Memorial Inner Beauty Pageant at 2:39 AM on November 14, 2007

Assuming it's not a hoax (and I don't think it is) this woman's suffering from a mental disorder called delusional pregnancy, with a dose of schizophrenia on the side, I'd bet. I'm normally okay with chuckling at the crazy folks on the internet, but unlike, say, the Timecube guy, this woman's in terrible emotional pain. Pointing and laughing's in bad taste.
posted by EarBucket at 4:07 AM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I love a good science post, but a let's-point-at-the-mentally-ill post strikes me as in very poor taste.


Yeah, hysterical pregnancy (want a terrible and misogynistic pun of a name, huh?) is interesting, but if you wanted to justify linking to that poor woman's blog, you should have led off with hysterical pregnancy, not with multiples. It just makes your prior links seem like filler and red herrings designed to set up the laugh-and-point-at-the-misfortunate.

It's like linking to bios of Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and then to the blog of some schizophrenic who thinks he's Napoleon: it just makes the first several links a worthless setup, and the final link a cruel joke on your part.

Really, I'm failing to see the usefulness of this post -- it sabotages itself so --, and so it just seems a waste of your time and ours, and as unpleasant as those moral cripples who hoot and point at the "short bus" carrying the retarded kids.

What were you really expecting from this FPP? Am I missing some interesting or illustrative or educational point you were trying to make?

Ah, ok, I just now looked at your tags, hoping that I was in fact missing some redeeming point of this FPP. I see from the tag "lolcrazypeople" that the whole point of this was a elaborate setup so we could get together to mock some poor sad unbalanced woman's delusions. Some woman who probably as all her life wanted a baby and for whatever reason didn't conceive it carry it term and so took refuge from her pain in a drab fantasy, and your reaction is to get together a mob to laugh at her. Classy.
posted by orthogonality at 4:07 AM on November 14, 2007 [3 favorites]

This was a very disturbing read, more because of her crazy reaction than the condition itself (although that is disturbing enough). One would think there's a very, very easy way to stop getting pregnant: stop having sex!
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:12 AM on November 14, 2007

What orthogonality said. She claims to have suffered 15 miscarriages, which is possible, and which may have contributed to her obvious mental illness. Leave the poor woman alone.
posted by jokeefe at 4:58 AM on November 14, 2007

I agree with everything you said, orthogonality, except for "drab fantasy". I'd consider the delusion of pregnancy to be drab. The delusion of being pregnant with 60 kids? Not so drab.

Doesn't affect anything else you said, which is all on the mark.
posted by Bugbread at 5:18 AM on November 14, 2007

Just ... sad.
posted by Kangaroo at 5:38 AM on November 14, 2007

The Goat With a Thousand Young
posted by hermitosis at 5:46 AM on November 14, 2007

I love Metafilter, but I'm not sure that mocking truly crazy people is what this site should be about.

Seconded.
posted by languagehat at 6:05 AM on November 14, 2007

bugbread writes "I agree with everything you said, orthogonality, except for 'drab fantasy'. I'd consider the delusion of pregnancy to be drab. The delusion of being pregnant with 60 kids? Not so drab."

Yeah, frequently when commenting here I just don't have the time to come up with exactly the right word; I knew when I wrote it that "drab" didn't exactly fit what I wanted to communicate, but couldn't come up with better. "Baroquely drab"?

Basically, I wanted a word that evoked the film "Brazil": gray, depressing, but baroque and elaborate and with Victorian-era bulkiness, almost like a Verne submarine with brass control panels and rococo decorations, but all that worn down and patina-ed by neglect, nauseatingly tossing in dark and murky waters, menaced under the forbidding shadow of some sea Leviathan some Kraken come to crush and tear the submarine-womb. But I don't know what that word is.
posted by orthogonality at 6:08 AM on November 14, 2007 [1 favorite]

I too vote for deletion... there's really no point to this given the last link.
posted by HuronBob at 6:10 AM on November 14, 2007

Given that the rest of your post is reasonable and has interesting links and a good premise, it's too bad you ended it with the last link and healthy does of MeFi Snark. You could have treated it with the sensitivity it deserves and still had a good post. No cookie for you.
posted by briank at 6:25 AM on November 14, 2007

Wave of babies...
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:26 AM on November 14, 2007

I also wonder whether cases of delusional pregnancy might be more common now that ultrasound can tell us about pregnancies that get reabsorbed back into the womb. In the past, many women had carried a fetus at one point, but the fetus miscarried, often without the women knowing. With the technologies we have for detecting pregnancies and the position and number of fetuses, not knowing about a soon-to-be-miscarried pregnancy is less and less of an option.
posted by jonp72 at 6:39 AM on November 14, 2007

Aw - take it down. Please?
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:48 AM on November 14, 2007

Oh, yuck.

God damn it, you've got to be kind.*
posted by rtha at 6:59 AM on November 14, 2007

Basically, I wanted a word that evoked the film "Brazil": gray, depressing, but baroque and elaborate and with Victorian-era bulkiness, almost like a Verne submarine with brass control panels and rococo decorations, but all that worn down and patina-ed by neglect, nauseatingly tossing in dark and murky waters, menaced under the forbidding shadow of some sea Leviathan some Kraken come to crush and tear the submarine-womb. But I don't know what that word is.

I think "schizophrenic" may do...
posted by Skeptic at 7:02 AM on November 14, 2007