She wouldn’t stop having babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This woman is clearly unwell. I wish the youngest twins could stay with their foster family. I also don’t understand how they can afford all of this IVF and legal expenses. Even with well paying jobs, they have a dozen kids and are not super-rich.

Bizarre story

Plane captains who are trained from many years in the Air Force make a crazy amount of money. $400-500K/year flying two weeks per month for FedEx or one of the major airlines.

This guy has been making great money for decades in a LCOL area like Buffalo.

Even $500k doesn’t go far with a dozen kids ,IVF and surrogate. The article says they have only $2M in a 401k in their mid-60s.

[Anonymous]

couldn't this have been avoided if there was a law with an age limit for becoming a parent via IVF and/or surrogate? At least one parent needs to be below a specified age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This woman is clearly unwell. I wish the youngest twins could stay with their foster family. I also don’t understand how they can afford all of this IVF and legal expenses. Even with well paying jobs, they have a dozen kids and are not super-rich.

Bizarre story

Plane captains who are trained from many years in the Air Force make a crazy amount of money. $400-500K/year flying two weeks per month for FedEx or one of the major airlines.

This guy has been making great money for decades in a LCOL area like Buffalo.

She raided their retirement account to pay the legal bills. These kids are gonna end up taking care of them. At least one, probably a girl, will spend her best years caring for them and will have virtually no life.

He has a $200k/yr pension. They’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

This whole crazy situation has Lifetime Movie written all over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:couldn't this have been avoided if there was a law with an age limit for becoming a parent via IVF and/or surrogate? At least one parent needs to be below a specified age?

It would also have been avoided if she hadn't forged the surrogacy documents. I know that some people are saying that fraud isn't a reason to lose your kids, but fraud to create another human being (or two) and have someone else gestate those babies isn't just everyday fraud.

[Anonymous]

In New York State, both spouses must sign off on surrogacy plans. Over the years, Bob had traveled so often that he let MaryBeth sign papers for him. “I got pretty good at his signature,” she says. He had eventually granted her power of attorney. Perhaps that covered a surrogacy contract too.

When MaryBeth got to thinking about it, Bob had done plenty of things without consulting her. Big stuff, too, like buying a new truck and paying off their timeshare in Orlando, Fla.

And what did he care, anyway? She was the one who raised their kids for 40 years while he flew around the world. She was the one who was going to raise these kids too.

On Feb. 13, 2023, MaryBeth stood at her dining-room table. On Page 23 of the gestational-surrogate agreement, above a signature line that read “Intended Father,” MaryBeth wrote in looping letters: ROBERT A. LEWIS. She later asked her brother-in-law to notarize the contract even though Bob wasn’t present.

The bolded is truly bonkers. She is justifying forgery to have children on the basis that her DH bought a truck once?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This woman is clearly unwell. I wish the youngest twins could stay with their foster family. I also don’t understand how they can afford all of this IVF and legal expenses. Even with well paying jobs, they have a dozen kids and are not super-rich.

Bizarre story

Plane captains who are trained from many years in the Air Force make a crazy amount of money. $400-500K/year flying two weeks per month for FedEx or one of the major airlines.

This guy has been making great money for decades in a LCOL area like Buffalo.

To wit: some SAHMs spend on shopping or vacations. This lady spent money on IVF and kids. Per the article, she spent little money, lived frugally, occasionally worked as a nurse, and basically plowed all their resources into more kids.

Their tuition bills must be insane.

The article talks about how her adult older kids (some of whom had kids of their own) were forced to do school pickups and manage the care of the newer kids while crazy 65 year old money continued to work as an RN. The older kids were on record as being unhappy about the situation--one of the older daughters said her mom promised to help her with her new baby and instead got this surrogate and got into this big mess with the new set of twins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This woman is clearly unwell. I wish the youngest twins could stay with their foster family. I also don’t understand how they can afford all of this IVF and legal expenses. Even with well paying jobs, they have a dozen kids and are not super-rich.

Bizarre story

Plane captains who are trained from many years in the Air Force make a crazy amount of money. $400-500K/year flying two weeks per month for FedEx or one of the major airlines.

This guy has been making great money for decades in a LCOL area like Buffalo.

She raided their retirement account to pay the legal bills. These kids are gonna end up taking care of them. At least one, probably a girl, will spend her best years caring for them and will have virtually no life.

He has a $200k/yr pension. They’ll be fine.

$200K is not very much money. Wait until they need long term care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her husband must be equally cuckoo to still stay with her.

Or maybe just greedy, he said he was leaving, she said well I'll take half, then the prospect of legal and financial damages, threatened to further diminish his half and he changed his mind.

He is an avoidant, perhaps disordered personality type, but he's not cuckoo. His staying fits, it works, he's hands off, he didn't commit the crime, he just avoids it all... he functions just as he always has. The guy makes sense, who wants to eat cat kibble and live in a box, in old age? No one, and that alone is a logical motivator and reason to stay.

He can keep doing what he's done his entire adult life, make himself scarce around the home, get some hobbies, maybe a mistress and travel the world, pop in when he needs a hug from the kids and grands, you know do what avoidant personalities do.

The article talks in some detail that this last set of twins was the final straw, that he had no idea about it, that he never consented. But then she said she would take half of all his assets, and he seemed to have realized that if he testified to her forging his signature on all those forms, she would go to jail and he would be stuck with all the young kids to care for them on his own...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her husband must be equally cuckoo to still stay with her.

Or maybe just greedy, he said he was leaving, she said well I'll take half, then the prospect of legal and financial damages, threatened to further diminish his half and he changed his mind.

He is an avoidant, perhaps disordered personality type, but he's not cuckoo. His staying fits, it works, he's hands off, he didn't commit the crime, he just avoids it all... he functions just as he always has. The guy makes sense, who wants to eat cat kibble and live in a box, in old age? No one, and that alone is a logical motivator and reason to stay.

He can keep doing what he's done his entire adult life, make himself scarce around the home, get some hobbies, maybe a mistress and travel the world, pop in when he needs a hug from the kids and grands, you know do what avoidant personalities do.

The article talks in some detail that this last set of twins was the final straw, that he had no idea about it, that he never consented. But then she said she would take half of all his assets, and he seemed to have realized that if he testified to her forging his signature on all those forms, she would go to jail and he would be stuck with all the young kids to care for them on his own...

That seems to be the crux of it. Marybeth's husband and adult kids all know she's nuts, broke laws, and is not fit to take care of more kids. But they know that if she goes to jail, they'll have to take care of all the kids/siblings they never wanted in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:couldn't this have been avoided if there was a law with an age limit for becoming a parent via IVF and/or surrogate? At least one parent needs to be below a specified age?

It would also have been avoided if she hadn't forged the surrogacy documents. I know that some people are saying that fraud isn't a reason to lose your kids, but fraud to create another human being (or two) and have someone else gestate those babies isn't just everyday fraud.

+1 seriously she doesn't appear to have much of a conscience about right and wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This woman is clearly unwell. I wish the youngest twins could stay with their foster family. I also don’t understand how they can afford all of this IVF and legal expenses. Even with well paying jobs, they have a dozen kids and are not super-rich.

Bizarre story

Plane captains who are trained from many years in the Air Force make a crazy amount of money. $400-500K/year flying two weeks per month for FedEx or one of the major airlines.

This guy has been making great money for decades in a LCOL area like Buffalo.

She raided their retirement account to pay the legal bills. These kids are gonna end up taking care of them. At least one, probably a girl, will spend her best years caring for them and will have virtually no life.

He has a $200k/yr pension. They’ll be fine.

$200K is not very much money. Wait until they need long term care.

If you are guaranteed that for the rest of your life, maybe inflation adjusted, it's actually quite a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

The surrogacy lawyer also sounds insane. Who takes on a 60+ client as an intended parent? Greedy and unethical.

[Anonymous]

Aside from the moral and legal questions, I feel really sorry for all of those kids, including the ones who are now adults. In any huge family, it's virtually impossible for the parents to take care of all the kids, unless they have the financial resources to hire lots of help. Therefore, without their consent, older kids get drafted into becoming de facto parents at an early age. Some might do it willingly or enjoy kids, but it's really unfair to assume that your older kids should take on huge responsibility for the younger ones just because you want to keep having more children. I have nothing against large families, but I do object to people doing it if they can't actually be the parent for ALL the kids.

For those questioning whether this woman has a mental illness, I would point to the extraordinary deception and illegality she chose to engage in to get what she wanted. She acted like an addict.

[Anonymous]

Man, I cannot believe she is not in jail! LOL

If anyone deserves to be, she does. The impact on so many lives....

I don't know. If I was an older kid, I'd just try to separate. Hell, you'd have enough siblings to still have family Seriously though, if that was my mom, I'd run away as fast as possible. If you consider that children kept leaving her at a certain age, she'd no longer want more and stop and the ones she has she could actually, would actually require spending time on raising.