Birthin' Babies Like It's A Full-Time Job

Some people dream of having a "big family" but what if "big" meant DOZENS OF KIDS? In this episode, we uncover the unbelievable true stories of two women who gave birth more times than you can imagine, redefining what it means to be a parent.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You ever realized that once you have kids, your life
ain't your life no more. Like I used to have hobbies, interests, dreams.
Even now, my hobby is being an uber driver with
no pay. My interest finding parking in under five minutes,
and my dream is just a nap. Most days, like

(00:21):
this weekend alone, I was running more routes than an
Amazon driver. My son had two basketball games Saturday, my
daughter had two performances for a play Sunday, three more
games for him. Her big finale was in the middle.
I was zigzagging all over to Carolina's like I was
on a scavenger hunt, and nobody told me I signed
up for I started the day in rock Hill, South

(00:42):
Carolina for his game, being backtracked to her school in
South Charlotte for her play, Being had to sprint back
to rock Hill for two more games. I ain't even
get out the car Sunday. I was basically living out
of it. I had snacks, extra clothes, or charging station.
By the end of the day, my call looked like
a mobile lost and fan ain't like it's something you
can complain about. Even if you try to start venting,

(01:03):
somebody hit you with them, but ain't you just so
proud of them.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, yes, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Very proud of them, but I'd also be proud if
I had time to eat a meal that wasn't from
a concession. Stand them little wet burgers and soggy froes
be twenty eight dollars. Look, I love my kids to death.
Everybody knows. We got an Instagram page dedicated to it.
Connect the dots, But nobody tells you that when you
give life, you give up your own. And it had

(01:29):
me thinking, I'm doing all this complaining about two kids.
I wonder who had the most kids, And boy, what
I learned blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
This woman gave birth to an entire village. I didn't know.
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I didn't know. I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Now, all jokes aside, given birth is one of the
most physically demanding things a human can do. I saw
my wife car become a superhero twice, once in two
thousand and six giving birth to my son Isaiah, and
again in twenty twelve giving birth to my daughter Ryan.
Now imagine doing that dozens of times, not in your lifetime,

(02:12):
but in a matter of years. That's exactly what happened
with two women from different centuries who set records for
the most children ever born. Now we'll start with the
undisputed world record holder. Her name is Valentina Vasiliev. Now
she from eighteenth century Russia. We're talking between seventeen twenty
five and seventeen sixty five. But she reportedly had sixty

(02:35):
nine children sixty nine. She gave birth twenty seven times.
She gave birth to sixteen twins, seven triplets, and four.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Sets of quadruplets.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
That means every time she were pregnant, she had multiples,
no single births at all. And the craziest part, sixty
seven of the sixty nine children survived infancy, which is
unheard of in that time period. Now, that record has
never been official beaten, But in more recent history, we've
got Mariam Nabatanzi, a woman from Uganda, and she's often

(03:07):
called the most fertile woman alive today. By the time
Mariam was forty years old, she'd given birth to forty
four children. And no it wasn't by choice. Like her
story is a bit heartbreaking, she was married off at
twelve years old to a man forty years older than
her and as soon as she started having kids, she
couldn't stop. Doctors later found out that she had a

(03:29):
rare genetic condition called hyperovulation, which caused her body to
release multiple eggs per cycle, which means she was way
more likely to have twins, triplets, or more like. In
her case, she had six sets of twins, four sets
of triplets, five sets of quadruplets. By the time she
was in her late thirties, she had already lost six children,
leaving her with thirty eight kids to raise thirty eight

(03:52):
alone because her husband walked out on her and she
spent her life working multiple jobs just to provide for them.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
That is insane.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Ain't left her alone to take care of thirty eight kids?
You know what kind of grossery bill that is? Like,
it ain't no buy one, get one free, You need
to buy one, get thirty seven free. Like, how do
you even discipline thirty eight kids? You can't whoop them
by the time you get the number twenty the first
one in the hell and back wild And now imagine
pulling up with thirty eight kids.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
You ain't ordering, you negotiating.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Look, we're gonna pay for twenty happy meals, But y'all
gonna have to throw in tea, in extra nuggets, and
a lifetime supply napkins. All right, would point is, I'm
complaining about two kids. God knows how many kids you
complaining about, and marry them. Nabatanzi is the CEO of
a small company. She waking up every morning like, all right,
who's on breakfast duty, who's handling transportation, who's head of laundry?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
And I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either,