美国夫妇生养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。

庞大的贝兹家庭

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。

据英国《每日邮报》24日报道，凯利-贝兹共生了18个孩子。这些孩子中没有双胞胎，而且凯利也从未进行过剖腹产手术，有14个孩子出生时都很健康，未使用过任何药物。凯利怀孕的时间比不怀孕的时间还多。

不过，虽然抚养了这么多孩子，以致已经可以组成两只棒球队了，这位来自美国田纳西州盐湖城的44岁母亲还希望家中能再添两个小男孩。

凯莉说：“我觉得怀孕的状态才是我应有的状态，我喜欢生孩子。”

她的孩子中年龄最大的22岁，最小的仅11个月大。

凯利夫妇称，他们原本没打算生这么多孩子，由于夫妻二人都是虔诚的福音教徒，从未采取任何节育措施，他们认为所有生命都来自上帝。

丈夫基尔-贝兹称：“我们都相信上帝会决定我们应该有多少个孩子，但我们没料到会有18个。不过，我们还是愿意再生一两个，或者三个。”

不过，组成这么大一家子的过程并非坦途。

由于凯莉已经流产了两次。目前她正在接受治疗，以便强化子宫壁(继续生育)。

由于孩子多，凯利家什么都很大。在4000平方英尺(约370平方米)的房屋中有5个卧室；其中8个女孩共住一间。

家里有5台洗衣机，3台烘干机和一整个阁楼的衣服。一家人有好几百件衬衫、短裤和T恤，内衣和袜子更是数不清。

日常出行时凯利家有两辆面包车，一辆可乘坐15人，另一辆可乘坐7人。

做饭是每天最大的功课，沃尔玛超市得两天去一次，每次开销就要250美元。

凯利家没有电视机和网络，孩子们的业余时间都用来学乐器，因此每个孩子都多才多艺。