Topic : 04/12 Twin Tug of War

Give mom the babies and GET HER OUT OF JAIL to live her life with ther BABIES !!  Are we going to put everyone in jail when a medical mystery comes along or TRY to work with the person to help them find out what happened, MAYBE under medical care NOT GUARDS !!

She was an upstanding person with NO RECORD !!  At the WORST ..make some other person be Guardian for  her,for a trial period to overlook what she does living with the babies.. !!Do something to get her babies to her BEFORE the babies Really Realize the world of mess they are in the middle of!!

I AM FOR the MOM IN JAIL !!

Grnmtnwoman..

Vermont

When I heard the first part describing the show, I almost turned it off.  My heart was aching just from the preview...for the mother and her babies.  I went through invitro and know that Allison must have really wanted those babies to go through all of that.  I don't know the other side, but it seems that the Hyperemesis would definitely affect your judgement.  I feel badly that she didn't have enough help while she was going through all of this (or it didn't seem that she had much help). 

I hope this goes to court VERY SOON.  It makes me very sad to think of Allison and her babies being apart any longer!!!!  And Allison she be let out of jail in the meantime...give me a break!  I know that the current caretakers will be upset too, but... 

I would want Allison to have mental testing before she gets her babies back though to make sure that she is able to care for them properly.

Sad in Texas!

You said "There is no paper, signed or not (signed under duress or influence of any kind should not be considered valid) that change the fact that the children have rights. They have an undeniable right to family, they have a blood right and no court decision will change the fact that they are their mother's children and she is their mother. "

How do you know these kids are biologically related to her?  Have you seen or heard of any quote from her where she says she is their bioloical mother?  I have heard her say she gave birth to them and she is their Mother but not that she is a BIOLOGICAL Mother.  She had two plus years of fertility treatements during her 47th year of life and a FIRST time Mother.  What do you think the odds are that HER eggs were used during the invitro that brought these kids into being?

I can not speak with authority on the Allison Quests case, as I do not know all of the details involved.  And I could tell you about my own personal struggles with HG, one that resulted in one beautiful daughter and the other that resulted in a near death experience and a lost and greatly missed child - but in truth it is similar to many others that have already been posted.

What I would like to adress however is the physical impact of HG.  Women with hg are hospitilzed multiple times to receive treatment for dehydration.  And since they are unable to keep down adequate nutrtion and the baby taps into their stores to meet its needs, they often suffer from prolonged malnourishment.  Those whose hg lasts longer in terms of weeks and months, or those who have more pronounced, uncontrollable vomiting suffer more extreme and long lasting effects.  Their body chemistry will become imbalanced due to important nutrient deficincies.  For example, a woman may become so depleted of potassium that her heart will suffer significant damage.  Or her body may become so depleted of fat stores that she may become to burn off her muscle mass.

Please note the many possible complications to the pregnant woman with HG:

In truth, anything that can go wrong with your body given poor hydration and nutrition can go wrong in the body of an HG woman.  And of course, they are additionally trying to help ensure the creation of a healthy child.

Take, for example, the simple concept of dehydration:

Signs of dehydration include thirst, dark-colored urine, fatigue, irritability, anxiety, agoraphobia, depression, food cravings, and allergies. Dr. Batmanghelidj says that emergency thirst signals include morning sickness, dyspeptic pain and heartburn, migraine headaches, angina, rheumatoid joint pain, back pain, colitis pain, fibromyalgic pain, constipation, late-onset diabetes, and hypertension. He also explains how the stress of long-term dehydration can lead to high cholesterol levels, heart failure, chronic fatigue, cancers, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, stroke, and Alzheimer's.

Many women who enter into pregnancy do so with purpose and intention, joyfully and anticipating a beautiful baby.  They prepare in all the ways recommended by ob/gyns.  And they are completely taken by surprise when they begin to suffer from HG.  They are not mentally ill or psychologically challenged or ambivalent about having a baby.  They are simply women who get dealt a crap card by suffering from this pregnancy disease.

After my second pregnancy, which was very severe and resulted in a loss - it took me almost an entire year working closely with phsycians and specialsits to try and recover phsyically from the damage done to my body from only 10 weeks of an extreme hg pregnancy.  Other women that I know have not been so lucky and continue to struggle with medical complications 2+ years out, including POTS disease, fibromyalgia, and other autoimmune disorders.

And there are documented complications for the babies of hg pregnancies, including lower birth-weight and the problems that correspond to that and a higher incident of second trimester loss.

As I said, I do not know the details of the Allison Quets case, but I do know what it is like to suffer from this disease - and it is a very real and life threatening disease.  I hope that you will all honor the lives of those women and babies who have lost their lives to this disease by recognizing it for the complication disease it is and showing compassion to those families that are currently and will be in the future trying to survive it.

Thank you

HG is not a mental illness. This disease can lead to post traumatic stress disorder but this illness does not mean that she is or was "crazy" . I highly doubt that she is mentally unstable. She obviously needed help and didn't know what else to do since the only "assistance" she received was pressure to sign over her children.

This is just to back you up ..about the woman saying to hope for an all female jury.  Not True!!  I recently went through a jury trial - dealing with a traumatic (malpractice induced) childbirthing experience and have to say that people would be surprised (as was my attorney) to find that it was the men on the jury showing all the compassion when it came time to deliberate, while the women were heartless, and described by the men jurors, as "being cold and catty".  As an example, if those same women jurors were sitting on this case, some selfish (can't see or feel anything outside of their box) women may think to themselves "so what, I gave birth, I was sick too, and I didn't give my babies away" - missing all the evidence that shows how physically and emotionally destructive this disorder is.    There is no one shoe fits all as someone else said.  People think of making generalizations when trying to size up the odds.  My lawyer thought odd-wise that it was best to get more women too.  Lots of times they are wrong - it all depends upon the moral character and life experiences of the person you get on your jury.  Lots of them have their own problems and are pissed about having to serve in the first place (missing work and such).  I think we should have professional jurors.  This was my first ever court experience and I can tell you it's truly shocking to think that frequently people place their lives in the fate of a jury - a random group of people, who just want to get it over with and get back home (some will take it seriously, and others won't - in fact an occassional snooze isn't out of the question) 

Patrice,

     I would like yourself and your physician (if one could call her that) to starve yourselves for five months without  a drop of water and repeatedly make yourselves vomit seventy times  a day.  I would like all your hair to fall out and huge bleeding ulcers grow on your esophagus.  Then I would like you to write us all back and give us  you and your "physicians" advice about prepregnancy health.  One of the main reasons women with hyperemesis feel isolated and depressed during their pregnancies is because of women like you and doctors like yours.  I feel pity for you and anyone who sees your "doctor".