Kate Gosselin

Kate Gosselin was born on March 28, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Kenton Eugene Kreider and Charlene Ruth Kreider. She has four siblings: sisters Kendra, Christen, and Clairissa, and a brother named Kevin.

She completed a certificate course in nursing from ‘Reading Hospital and Medical Center’ in Reading, Pennsylvania. Thereafter, she took up employment as a maternity nurse in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

It was while working in the hospital that Kate became acquainted with Jon Gosselin during a picnic on 5th October 1997. Following an extensive romance that went on for almost two years, Kate married Jon on 12th June 1999.

Kate, after undergoing a pelvic speculum, came to know that she was suffering from PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) which would come in the way of her getting pregnant naturally. Consequently, she decided to go for artificial insemination in order to get impregnated.

After undergoing the fertility treatment procedure, Kate conceived and gave birth to Cara and Madelyn, who were twins. She opted for additional fertility treatments as she and her husband were desirous of having more children.

In May 2004, Kate and Jon were blessed with sextuplets—daughters Alexis, Leah, and Hannah, and sons Joel, Collin, and Aaden—thanks to fertility treatments.

The sextuplets had to be placed in medical ventilators as they were born premature. Kate later revealed in her book, ‘Love Is in the Mix’ that there were a total of seven fetuses initially out of which one did not survive to see the light of the day.

Kate and Jon, along with their eight children, all of whom were conceived via artificial insemination, generated a lot of publicity. The sextuplets, in particular, attracted the attention of the electronic media. The Gosselin family was invited by NBC TV Network to feature in ‘Home Delivery’, a reality show, in 2004.

The offer from NBC came at a time when the couple was renovating their home in Wyomissing to house themselves and their eight offspring in 2004. NBC TV Network funded the couple’s home refurbishment project.

In 2005 September, the family starred in ‘Surviving Sextuplets and Twins’—a special program endorsed by ‘Discovery Communications’ TV channel Discovery Health. The program, which was lapped up by the audiences, garnered so much publicity that Discovery Health was enthused to produce a sequel named ‘Sextuplets and Twins: One Year Later’ in 2006.

The reality TV shows, ‘Surviving Sextuplets and Twins’ and ‘Sextuplets and Twins: One Year Later’ catapulted the Gosselins into national limelight. In 2007, Kate and Jon entered into an agreement with Discovery Health to appear in ‘Jon & Kate Plus 8’ a reality TV series that chronicled their lives.

'Jon & Kate Plus 8' which started telecasting from April 2007, revolved around the lives of the couple and the hardships they had to go through for raising the sextuplets and twins. The couple received a handsome remuneration for their appearances on the reality show that ran into several seasons.