For all the ink spilled in the whole Octomom saga, not much has been written yet about the group that has offered to take over the care of the octuplets (free of charge!). Angels in Waiting, which was introduced to the drama via a Fox News interview also starring Gloria Allred, says it's willing to take the eight babies, keep them in "a home" (presumably not Suleman's), and provide the care they need as medically fragile premature newborns.
All of which sounds fairly generous -- a point repeatedly made by various bloggers who are dying for Suleman to turn over them babies! -- until you read more about them. Angels in Waiting is not devoted to helping stressed-out, possibly mentally ill mothers of multiples take care of their kids -- their goal is to prepare babies born to meth addicts to be adopted out. From their website:
Angels in Waiting is dedicated to moving these special little angels
into loving homes with Registered Nurses as their foster parents and
then on to adoptive homes in which they could recover or stabilize,
grow and now flourish; their troubled pasts overshadowed by their
hopeful futures.
Founded by a registered nurse whose own life was changed through the care and ultimate adoption of a micro-premie born to a meth-addicted mother, Angels in Waiting is clear about its mission: putting babies into homes, not with their birth parents, preferably with a foster mother who is also a nurse. And who works for Angels in Waiting!
It's a little unclear to me how this model fits into the Nadya Suleman situation. Despite the seemingly endless questions about her ability to care for these babies, she has expressed a steadfast determination to parent all her children. If she proves to be unfit, as many have predicted, I have no doubt child protective services will step in. But CPS's goal is twofold: help the children, and help support the parent so that the family can be re-united. This is not the goal of Angels in Waiting, whose website is filled with gauzily religious testimonials about "tiny ones" and "injured ones" -- and which has a "donate" button on each page. One thing not made clear on the Angels website is how many babies they have actually helped, how big their operation is, or where donated money actually goes (though they do make a big deal about the need for scrapbookers to help create memory books for the angels).
As nutty and publicity hungry as Suleman has appeared so far to be, she has some stiff competition here.
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