I ran into a fellow RE at the hospital we eventually came around to discussing the news of the octuplets who were born yesterday. Our initial reaction was like a fishing expedition for gossip with each of us asking the other “Do you know who the RE was? I wonder if it was so-and-so.” We both said “It wasn’t me.” Neither of us knew, but it’s likely that in the next few days, we’ll eventually hear more of the details.
Although I know zero specifics of the case right now other than what was reported in the news, my professional opinion is that I’m more than 99% sure this involved injectable fertility drugs. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this was the work of an RE. Some general OB/Gyn’s also prescribe injectable gonadotropins. In fact, I’ve also heard of cases in which patients went to Mexico, procured the drugs and self-medicated without a doctor’s supervision.
My medical curiosity springs up with two immediate questions. How old was the mother? How many follicles did she have? What was her infertility history? If forced to speculate, I would venture to guess that she is not over 35 and that there were at least twenty follicles and that this might have been her first treatment cycle.
Hopefully, the public is not misled by this into thinking that all octuplet pregnancies will have this good of an outcome. On the contrary, there has only been one other time in history, where there were surviving octuplets. On another note, I hope the public is not misled into thinking that this type of high-order multiple pregnancy is a common occurrence when taking fertility medications.
