美國夫婦生養18名子女不嫌多

Kelly Bates has had 18 children. She has had no twins, no C-sections and 14 drug-free births and has spent more of her adult life pregnant than not。

But, even with the unimaginable logistics of raising a family that could field two sports teams, the 44-year-old mother from Lake City, Tennessee, is praying for two more baby boys。

Kelly said: “It feels more normal to me to be pregnant than not be pregnant. I'm happy holding a baby。”

Among the children, the oldest is 22 years old, while the youngest is just 11 months。

龐大的貝茲家庭

It was never the Bates' intention to produce such a big family, but they are evangelical Christians who do not believe in using birth control, instead putting their lives - and their home size - into the hands of God, they say。

“We both came to the conclusion that we just want to trust God with how many children we have. We never really thought we'd have 18. We thought we'd have maybe one or two - maybe three,” says Gil。

The path to having such a large family has not been entirely without intervention, however。

Two miscarriages made Kelly opt for therapy to strengthen her uterus wall。

The Bates family does everything on a grand scale. Their 4,000-square-feet home has five bedrooms. Eight of the girls, share a bedroom。

The family's laundry has five washers and three driers and rails of clothes that stretch the length of the loft room, holding hundreds and hundreds of shirts, pants and T-shirts - not to mention an eye-wateringly large mountain of underwear and socks。

The family gets around in two vans - one 15 passenger and one seven seated。

Every meal's preparation is a finely honed exercise, and the Walmart food shop is an every-second-day occurrence and each time totals more than $250.

The home is a strict no TV and no internet zone, the children instead whiling away time by practicing their musical instruments - all of the children are talented。據英國《每日郵報》24日報道，凱利-貝茲共生了18個孩子。這些孩子中沒有雙胞胎，而且凱利也從未進行過剖腹產手術，有14個孩子出生時都很健康，未使用過任何藥物。凱利懷孕的時間比不懷孕的時間還多。

不過，雖然撫養了這麼多孩子，以致已經可以組成兩隻棒球隊了，這位來自美國田納西州鹽湖城的44歲母親還希望家中能再添兩個小男孩。

凱莉說：“我覺得懷孕的狀態纔是我應有的狀態，我喜歡生孩子。”

她的孩子中年齡最大的22歲，最小的僅11個月大。

凱利夫婦稱，他們原本沒打算生這麼多孩子，由於夫妻二人都是虔誠的福音教徒，從未採取任何節育措施，他們認爲所有生命都來自上帝。

丈夫基爾-貝茲稱：“我們都相信上帝會決定我們應該有多少個孩子，但我們沒料到會有18個。不過，我們還是願意再生一兩個，或者三個。”

不過，組成這麼大一家子的過程並非坦途。

由於凱莉已經流產了兩次。目前她正在接受治療，以便強化子宮壁(繼續生育)。

由於孩子多，凱利傢什麼都很大。在4000平方英尺(約370平方米)的房屋中有5個臥室；其中8個女孩共住一間。

家裏有5臺洗衣機，3臺烘乾機和一整個閣樓的衣服。一家人有好幾百件襯衫、短褲和T恤，內衣和襪子更是數不清。

日常出行時凱利家有兩輛麪包車，一輛可乘坐15人，另一輛可乘坐7人。

做飯是每天最大的功課，沃爾瑪超市得兩天去一次，每次開銷就要250美元。

凱利家沒有電視機和網絡，孩子們的業餘時間都用來學樂器，因此每個孩子都多才多藝。