Woman Who Gave Birth to 8 Already Had 6

This story is getting a little more bizarre by the day:

WHITTIER, California , Calif. — The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week has six other children and never expected to have eight more when she took fertility treatment, her mother said.

Angela Suleman said her daughter expects a big challenge raising 14 children. The good news, she said, is all the babies appear healthy.

"I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful," Suleman told The Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

Suleman's daughter gave birth to the octuplets Monday at a hospital in Bellflower but has requested that doctors keep her name confidential. Media knew little about the woman until a family acquaintance told CBS' "The Early Show" on Thursday that the mother is "fairly young" and lives with her parents and her six children.

Within hours, media had camped out at the family's home in Whittier, where the babies' grandfather pulled up in a minivan in the evening and briefly spoke to The Associated Press. Beside him were two children — a 7-year-old and 6-year-old — who said they were excited to have eight new siblings.

The question my wife and I have had all along is "where is the father?". The apparent answer is "there is none", which raises all sorts of other questions. I don't know this family's financial situation, but what are the odds a woman with six children living with her parents can afford to take on 8 more? I wonder how much government money is going to support all of this?

If they're doing it all on their own, God bless them and she can have as many kids as she wants. If the taxpayers are paying for all this, then I have problems with it.

UPDATE: Heard on the radio that there is a husband who is soon leaving for Iraq. I haven't confirmed that anywhere else. He reportedly works for a private contractor, not the military.