It's snowing.
I twisted my ankle.
I'm recuperating from a particularly nasty UTI.

Myself and my everlargening arse took a tv day I'm so ashamed. No, not for watching. For WHAT I was watching. It wasn't even worth it.

I bring this up because at around sixteen hundred hours there's young couple on HGTV having Vern Yip redo their family room. I'm never a HGTV - I'm a Style Network and occasionally a Bravo. I really like Clean House. I have no idea why because the final designs are shite but lordie I'm a sucker for a makeover show.

Meanwhile Vern is expending false enthusiasm and throwing his neutral color palette at a spectacularly sweet - truly sweet - couple from... hmmm...somewhere. They have 5 kids - a twelve year old girl and quads. The girls are all dolls and I'm wondering for a minute - are they natural twins. Four girls. Two eggs could have split two times. It's possible. I'll grant you the older girl looks biracial so I assume infertility and adoption but why speculate? Could be a second marriage. A cousin. Whatever. They seem like a perfectly lovely family. Grateful, oh god yes. Surely.

So I'm watching in a half ass'd way (ok, fully ass'd but quasi attentive) and I'm struck by the following:

Vern: So what was your first thought, your first thought when you heard you were having quads?
Husband: teary. Well I first worried about my wife's safety (I love this guy) and then the health of the babies...
Wife: The doctors had mentioned selective termination...she hesitates
Both in unison: But that just WASN'T an option for us. chorus seconding theme

WAIT A MINUTE. Wait a wait a wait a minute. Pause. Rewind. Do I detect a note of, what was it? Was it pride? Sanctimoniousness? Smugness? Okayyyy. I mean, I'm not looking at your beautiful children thinking for a hot minute that you should have had any other choice but I just want to replay the tone. You sound...preachy. Pious. A mouth in a moue like a parsimonious preacher. Are you defensive? Did someone give you a "you brought this on yourself" attitude?

Or maybe not.

But it raised the question so I asked it of my husband.

"Did you ever notice how some people who use artificial insemination (yeah, I just used the nonpc term, have at it) act disgusted and refuse to consider selective termination citing moral grounds? God's plan and all that? Don't you just want to say "Isn't that the same God who's plan thwarted you from getting pregnant to begin with?"

Yes, I know.
We aren't allowed to make fun of the infertile.

just to spare myself the bullshit - yes, i have infertile friends. I have clomids, and three years trying, and failed invitros. I also have a two implants taken and thriving. So pipe down. I'm also aware of the dangers to the fetus's when selective termination is chosen. The OTHER fetus's that it. It's pretty obvious that it's damaging the first one. and yes, I do find it a fascinating discussion. Selective morality. I'm fascinated by the ethics. The issues. Yes, I understand that for some, having multiples is preferred. If you cannot have a child, and yet you know you want at least two, twins are highly preferred, even triplets. But having a litter of eight? I live in Massachusetts for crying out loud. We have the highest rates of multiples in the country (read: older educated woman, read: liberal insurance policies, read: leader in child care laws in the country thank you very much). I'm Pro. Pro it all. Pro multiples, pro babies, pro intervention, pro fertility. Everyone who wants a child deserves one. Or two. Or four. I'm just commenting on the absurdity of using both sides of an argument and not seeing the irony.

Just spare me the holier then thou.