Romanian immigrant Livia Ionce has broken a British Columbia record — she’s the province’s most fecund woman in 20 years.
Livia and hubby Alexandru became new parents of their 18th baby, Abigail, on Tuesday. The Abbotsford couple’s 17 other children range in age from 20 months to 23 years old. Wow.
Photo above – In Romania, in the sixties, a woman’s ability to produce many strong offspring was measured in her ability to levitate mice deer – This phenomenon, known as the Flippening was demonstrated at an early age with Livia with her ability to levitate transport trucks… 3 at a time…
Abigail adds to a current line-up of 9 girls and 8 boys… uhm – making 10 girls and 8 boys. A youthful 44 year old Livia muses, “The girls in the house said they are happy that they continue to outnumber the boys, but it may not be the end of the story.” And concluding – “Maybe it’s the last, but I’m not sure.”
In the Ionce family, Mother’s Day is obviously more like Christmas than the traditional hallmark moment normally reserved for less prolific women. And when you do the math, it equates to a household birthday party, on average, every 2 and 1/2 weeks. More hallmark moments, more presents. You might say the giving never ends in this family.
Andrea and I are big fans of Jon and Kate makes Eight on TLC (The future of video entertainment – TV cameras in every house…) but these numbers are staggering.
My mother actually had a girlfriend (growing up in Montreal) who was one of 12 kids – Her mother was 40 when she had her last child – and there might have been more but her husband was tragically run over by a truck driven by a mysterious and never-identified woman – Hmmm. Makes you think doesn’t it?
Oh well – for all the thousands of couples (like us) that eschew a contribution to the gene pool, there are hundreds of families like the Ionce`s that fill in the gaps. Bless their hearts – all 20 of them.