No Great Outpouring of Support for Struggling New Mom of Quintuplets
When Adwai Malual found she was pregnant with multiple babies, she wasn’t clear how it would effect her. A first-time mother at 28 years old, she didn’t fully realize what one baby required, let alone the quintuplets she was carrying.
After coming from Sudan to the United States to receive a blessing on her pregnancy from her mother-in-law (who was living in the U.S.), Malual developed serious complications and was hospitalized and unable to return home. Her babies, now six weeks old, are healthy and doing well, but for some monitoring for breathing issues. But Malual is on her own.
Her husband works in a government position in Sudan and has not been able to leave work and has not yet seen his five babies except in photos. Meanwhile, Malual is stuck in Laurel, Maryland with her mother temporarily visiting to help her. But she has little other support.
No diaper companies sent truck loads of products, no formula maker sent gallons of assistance, as sometimes happens in these kinds of cases.
A local church has helped with some hand-me-down baby clothes and two cribs. But 12 hours a day, Malual does nothing but attend to her babies until her mother takes over for a few hours so she can sleep. When her mother leaves, she doesn’t know what she will do.
Sudan is a war-torn country and she would prefer to raise her children in the United States. But she would have to apply for sanctuary, be approved, find childcare and a job that covered the cost of it plus living expenses for six. Whether she makes it home to Sudan or somehow makes life work in the U.S., for now, Malual needs all the help she can get.
A chaplain from the hospital where the babies were born is collecting donations for her. For information on how you can help, see the chaplain’s name and address at the end of the story linked here.
For more photos of the beautiful babies, see the Washington Post’s photo gallery.
See also:
Pulling the Plug on Plural Pregnancies
Mom Stuns Docs With Extra Baby
image: washingtonpost.com
I think the mom is absolutely beautiful,and so are her babies.Especially that picture where she is looking down at them as they are all lined propped up in a neat row, and she is holding a hand on either side of them displaying them,like they are the most precious thing in the world, and they respond by just looking so cute,and unaware of anything.
I would love to see a show about this mom,and I’m not black,I’m not a minority.I’m white.I think the networks should think about this instead of putting the same old same old on TV. I would love to see the show of a black family with multiples. We never get the priveledge of seeing that. Plus it’s interesting. People want to see how the other half live. This lady is a respectable married, woman. I would love to see how she battles the challenges of raising 5 babies and adjusting to America all in one shot,while being seperated from her husband. Whether she decides she wants to stay or not.
I’m glad I stumbled upon this article.
I really feel for this lady and her family! I don’t feel she has done this to “milk the system” like Octo-Mom!
I’ve donated to this lady, and gladly so, but would not give a single cent to Octo-Mom who, in my opinion, is nothing but a sleazy con artist at the expense of her poor, innocent little babies!
I see that quite frequently, Jill. It’s called a “baby shower.” People have them who are not strangers in a foreign country, but are surrounded by friends and family who often pitch in to defray the expense of a new baby. Sometimes they even help the new parents by providing meals for them, or other kinds of assistance when the baby is a newborn.
I only had one baby at a time and donations can be sent to…………LOL do you ever see that?
I wonder if we could get some national publicity with all the hoopla about the 8 babies-seems like this worthly case could provide quite a contrast-only thing I worry about is the anti-immigration issue however it would be worth it if more donations were received
Judy
wow.
it’s so easy to judge when you haven’t walked in someone’s shoes. Those of us who were born in the US – even if you were born poor in America – we are all so truly blessed comapred to most of the rest of the world RE opportunity, medical care….We are not that lucky because of something we have done – we are lucky because our ancestors somewhere back decided to travel to this country.
As someone struggling with infertility – I can tell you IVF is expensive and mediacally complex – and most docs will not implant more than 2 embryos – 3 if you are older with additional risk factors.
But – even if it was IVF – unless you have had difficulty having children and had to watch every neighbor, friend and family member buy you have children – do not be so quick to judge fertility treatments. The need to have children is one of the strongest drives both biological and emotional for most of us – and if you are a caring human – of course you will do whatever is best to take care of your babies.
please have compassion people.
Wow. People are mean.
I think whether she did ART (doubt it, no way she did IVF) is irrelevant. Before the advances in fertility treatments, women DID have high order multiples. (Think the Dion quints). Many times, these higher order multiples died or killed the mother and so were rarely publicized.
The other thing is this: Anyone who decides to become pregnant takes a risk. ANY ONE OF US could have an unpredictable outcome that we can’t handle alone. It could be multiples, it could be a child with a disability or a medical condition, it could be an illness that the mother gets while pregnant, it could be loss of a job or a fire or whatever. I am tired of all this whole “women who do ART should just suck it up when the outcome is not what they have hoped.” You go to the doctor after trying to have children for years and find out you aren’t ovulating regularly. The doctor gives you five little pills to take (i.e. Clomid) and says this will regulate ovulation. Oh, and by the way, there is a 5% chance you will have twins. Okay. Sounds like reasonable odds, right? Oh, and there is a .0005% chance you will have high order multiples of 5 or more. Still, reasonable odds for just taking 5 pills to have a baby, right? Any of us who get pregnant face odds like that, whether it be twins or down syndrome (much, much higher odds) or a heart defect or maternal death or whatever. Pregnancy is still a risky business, folks. And one that, no matter how much we plan for it, is largely out of our control. So quit playing the blame game and find a bone of compassion somewhere. God forbid you ever find yourself in difficult circumstances and in need of help.
As for the who Sudanese thing. Good GAWD, people! If you are going to blame a mother for either a) traveling to the U.S. to participate in a long-held important tradition and then happening upon a medical emergency, and/or b) finding out at home that you actually have a medical emergency that could kill you and/or your children and you take your doctor’s advice and go overseas to find help…well, then you are just cold, bigoted idiots.
We are fortunate to live in a country of great wealth. But there is nothing special about us that makes it so we deserve that wealth and everyone else can just suck it. We are no better than anyone else and if we can’t share our wealth then what the hell is it good for besides destroying the environment and keeping other people impoverished?
Sorry, Shannon, but these comments pissed me off. I’m going to head over to your site and see what I can do for this woman.
Wow, Lula that link… I’m so disgusted.
It is just odd to me that people have so little empathy for others. I don’t even know what else to say. It’s very sad.
I swear, some of the comments here read like they belong at this White Nationalist site, which lays out the story in detail.
http://whitereference.blogspot.com/2008/12/sudanese-broodmare-adwai-malual-squirts.html
Adwai Malual was only in her second trimester of pregnancy when she came here to visit her MIL. Thank god she *was* visiting in a country where quality medical care was available, given the complications she and her children experienced!
As for the presumptions of illegal immigration plots: There is absolutely no reason to believe the family isn’t planning to return to Sudan once the babies are well enough to travel. Mrs. Malual was not seeking to emigrate when she came here, and she can hardly leave her children here alone! None of us would do that if we’d experienced a medical emergency and given birth to fragile babies while visiting in another country.
Adwai Malual and her children do not deserve the vitriol being directed toward them simply because she had the audacity to become ill and deliver her babies while visiting the US. Be ashamed.
I’ve been organizing donations via a parenting listserv in the DC area. I’ve been in touch with Barbara Sands at AAHS (mentioned in the Washington Post article) and with folks at Grace Baptist Church (also mentioned in article). They are both in close contact with the family. This is the information I was given about monetary and gift card donations.
Donations can be sent to:
Grace Baptist Church
7210 Racetrack Road
Bowie, MD 20715
Make checks out to Grace Baptist Church, and on memo line put: “Benevolence – Quintuplets”
Donations are fully tax deductible.
**OR**
From Barbara Sands, AAHS -
Send donations to:
Mrs. Delores Hawkins
Mt. Tabor UMC
1421 St. Stephens Church RD.
Crownsville, MD 21032
Make checks Payable to: Adwai Malual
I think it’s safe to say that the world is sick of people getting pregnant with a litter and then hoping that the rest of us will bail them out. 5 women have already had quintuplets this year. Can the big companies afford to support all of these families? Probably not and can the world afford to support and buy gifts for every family that goes for fertility treatment ‘just to have 1 baby’ and ends up having 5. You guessed it – NO again!
There are so many families who have had to sell their homes and move in with relatives because of the poor economy. These people can’t afford to support their own families let alone a women who purposely came here to have her babies. Probably knowing that Americans are generous in these unusual birth occurances…
“in these economic times, I don’t think anyone can afford to be too smug about their present circumstance in life.”
This is what surprises me about some of the comments. There but for the grace of God, folks…
If you read the WA post article, you will see that she came to the US to get her MIL’s blessing when she was 16 weeks pregnant. Her doctors in Sudan had told her she was expecting multiple children, but thought it was 3 or 4 (not five!). Based on the level of development in Sudan, as one of the poorest countries in the world with abysmal maternal and child health care, I can’t imagine that IVF or any other kind of fertility treatments are offered anywhere. Especially for a healthy woman who is only 28 years old (27 when she conceived). I can’t believe how incredibly insensitive some of the other posts are. Why don’t you look up Sudan and look up the poverty and maternal health statistics on the internet, and then think again about ‘sending her back.’ It seems clear she didn’t come here purposefully to give birth – you are allowed to fly on international flights while pregnant until about your 32nd week, so she was well within the window. Mothers in the greater DC area are rallying to do diaper and formula drives, and I hope those living farther away will contribute. Helping those in need helps all of us – in these economic times, I don’t think anyone can afford to be too smug about their present circumstance in life.
My bad about Jon and Kate, ya’ll. I’ve never seen the show, just pictures of Kate herself. I still think part-Asian, part-white kids have a broader televisory appeal than Black children of any description, sadly.
As for my fundraiser, if anyone is interested, see my website, linked in my babble profile. But if anyone wants to send money straight to this cause, there is an email link at the end of the Washington Post story linked above, where you can inquire about where to send it.
Shannon, where can we find details about the fundraiser?
I think it’s possible that the tanking economy is as much to blame for the lack of support this woman is getting than racism. Or at least, I hope so. I wish that I was in a position to help her.
Wow. Race is such a factor in this case it’s somewhat staggering how some people are(or are choosing to be) blind to it. Reminds me of Bosnia/Rwanda.
And that simple compassion for a vulnerable mother from a war-torn country with high-order multiples is lacking in some of these commenters is very strange to me.
Shannon, as an aside for the record– “Jon & Kate”‘s children are half Korean and are darker skinned with dark eyes and black/dark brown hair.
Yes, it’s highly unlikely that these are IVF babies. I can think of no super-high-order multiples in the news who were. It’s likely that these babies were conceived via the use of ovulation-inducing drugs. I don’t know very much about Sudan, but it seems likely that the woman and her family might have been anxious to provide children to her husband’s family. In many parts of the world, infertility can be a grave problem for a wife.
I would bet money that the mother genuinely didn’t realize how high-risk her pregnancy was, that she wasn’t adequately counseled in the risks she faced taking the drugs in the first place, and that there was no intent to “game the system” by traveling to the States. But it’s just a guess.
(FWIW, fewer and fewer quintuplet families are getting handouts from anyone. The companies have realized that the publicity factor is approaching zero, given the relative growth in 5+ births. Also, families in smaller towns are more likely to get publicity than families in major metropolitan areas. But , all things being equal, black families receive fewer donations than white families when faced with these very high-order multiple birhts.)
I know some more of the story. All of her medical costs were/are covered by the hospital and attending physicians. She wanted her MIL’s blessing on her pregnancy — apparently that’s an important tradition in her culture. She had left the MIL and was visiting her sister.when the complications arose, and the hospital agreed to help her. She knew there were multiples before she left her country, but had no idea there were 5. Her doctor had recommended she seek maternity care overseas because he didn’t think the babies would survive otherwise. I think the woman was trying to do the right thing for her children, and still is.
Local media are doing a lot to try to get her some help, but the economy has tanked, and people who might have tried to help before just aren’t able to do as much now.
Sue & Life in the Bend: very good points about “what is” instead of just the why, and the fact that it’s possible that she didn’t even know that she was carrying multiples.
“It makes me want to fly out there and help her”
That’s exactly how I felt. I’m doing a fundraiser for her instead.
Oh that poor mama! It makes me want to fly out there and help her. I cannot imagine.
I know enough about maternal medicine in Ethiopia (which borders Sudan but generally has BETTER medical facilities) to doubt that this mother had even had an ultrasound, much less access to ART.
If I lived in a war torn country with extraordinarily high rates of maternal and infant death and had a chance to emigrate…hell yes. I’m rather shocked that anyone would begrudge her that.
Of course, we don’t even know that was the case here. She very well could have come to the US for a visit, thinking she was only expecting one baby and ended up blindsided by the medical catastrophe that is high-end multiples.
True about race being a factor, unfortunately. But the facts are, these children are U.S. citizens and the chaplain is right to deal with “what is” instead of what anyone might think about them being here. The babies are innocent in all of this, even if their mother did “scheme” to give birth here.
(btw, Jon of the show you mentioned is 1/2 Korean and the kids all look very asian. Darn cute though!)
treespeed, fertility treatment, yes, probably. IVF, I’ll bet you $10 no way. In IVF embryos are transferred to a woman’s uterus in the hopes one will implant and grow to a baby. Doctors do not transfer 5 embryos. Also, IVF is highy technical and expensive. A pill to make a woman ovulate more is much cheaper and easier. She might well have been taking clomid or another drug and got pregnant through sex with her husband.
As for who should or shouldn’t receive help from others with their multiples and/or be in the United States, I do suspect that race is a big factor in the sympathy extended or not to people. Jon and Kate and their cute blond children? Give ‘em a t.v. show! African woman and her four daughters from a country that has one of the worst track records on human rights for girls and women? Throw them back!
Skeptic, I for one back you up. Friends who work in the medical field have told too many stories of foreigners coming to the US explicitly because they know that their medical needs will be attended to. While I understand the woman wanting to do what’s best for her kids, I also think that the state has an obligation to protect its citizens best interests: In this case, this very possibly means sending the woman back to the Sudan. A lot of people are waiting to get into the US; they should do so by legal means.
That said, I think the lack of media attention may be explained by the fact that there are lots of super-multiples these days (octuplets!); by over-saturation (“Jon & Kate + 8″); and, perhaps, by the fact that she is black. I’m curious though: Were these naturally-conceived quintuplets? Wow.
There is no way this is not the result of IVF. Why would you choose to have five babies if you don’t have the means to care for them?
What beautiful babies, I’m glad they’ll get a chance to grow up and live in a free country.
Lots of people get angry when parents want their children to grow up here – especially when those parents are non white. Reminds me of the story (NYTimes, a year or so ago) of a family being hunted down, yelled at and even assaulted because the parents were Hispanic and one was an illegal immigrant – and they sent their American-born (=citizen) daughter to public school in the US. She has special needs so she cost the school some extra money to meet them. I am always saddened by the hatred spewed towards these families – I know that, if I had to choose to do something illegal to give my daughter a chance at life itself or safety from harm and rape by soldiers, to give her even a chance at education and happiness – I’d be hard pressed not to take it.
Now this is just conjecture, but I think she was SMART to have her babies here. Who knows how many babies would have died (or if _she_ would have died) given the high-risk pregnancy and the conditions in Sudan. And since they apparently still need medical monitoring, of course she’s staying put.
Plus, this is part of what America’s all about, right? “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? These babies are literally huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
I for one am incensed that there has been so little support for this woman and her gorgeous babies. I hope the media attention will help them.
Who said I hate her? It may not be what you like to hear, but we can’t welcome everyone into the country, as much as I personally would like to. We just don’t have the resources. Some people do, in fact, try to buck the system by coming here to give birth because they think it will increase their chances of being able to emigrate legally.
And what if she did come to the US so that her children could be born here?
And?? So she makes an attempt to leave a war-torn country where children are maimed and killed to find a better life for her children elsewhere and you hate her for it? Must be horrible to be you, Skeptic.
OK, so this sounds mean, but am I the only one who thinks it is totally obvious she came here so her children could be born in the US? It certainly would have been safer for her MIL to travel to the Sudan for the blessing, rather than a woman pregnant with multiples flying to the US for such a thing. And where is her MIL now? Apparently she is not helping out at the moment.