The woman who just had eight babies has a few more at home — which may give new meaning to the phrase “Freedom of choice act.” Her choice was remarkable, in many ways.

From the LA Times:

The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week already has six young children and never expected that the fertility treatment she received would result in eight more babies, her mother said Thursday.

The woman, who has not been publicly identified, had embryos implanted last year, and “they all happened to take,” Angela Suleman said, leading to the eight births Monday. “I looked at those babies. They are so tiny and so beautiful.”

“It’s going to be difficult,” Suleman added, noting that her daughter’s father is going back to Iraq, where neighbors said he worked as a contractor, to help support the expanded family.

The mother of the octuplets lives on a well-kept cul-de-sac in Whittier, where more than a dozen reporters and camera crews descended Thursday.

Neighbors said she and her six children — ages 7, 6, 5, 3 and 2-year-old twins — live there with her mother. Her marital status is unknown. Family members did not answer the door, but when a reporter called the home asking for Suleman, she spoke briefly.

According to her account, when her daughter discovered that she was expecting multiple babies, doctors gave her the option of selectively reducing the number of embryos, but she declined.

“What do you suggest she should have done? She refused to have them killed,” Suleman said as the sound of children could be heard in the background. “That is a very painful thing.”

Check out the LA Times link for more.

UPDATE: As a couple commenters have noted, there are serious moral questions about how this was done. And I have to add: there’s something just plain peculiar about this whole thing. A woman with six children (including a set of twins) has IVF to have more, knowing full-well she could have a lot more…and she may not even be married?

It’s…odd. To say the least.

Stay tuned.