Eight little bundles make public debut

Published on Monday 9 February 2009 20:41

THE world's only surviving octuplets have been introduced to the world.

Nadya Suleman, 33, who already has six children, tours the eight hospital cots to hold each baby for 45 minutes at a time, she revealed in an interview, broadcast in the US yesterday.

In footage of her in hospital, she coos: "Hi sweetie," while caressing one baby, before telling the infant: "I wish I could stay a long time, all day long – but I can't."

The single mother admitted she may have been rash – as her own mother condemned her decision to have the octuplets as "unconscionable" – and said she was already "struggling" to raise her first six children. But she said her yearning to have a large family had got the better of her.

"I was projecting my own wants and wishes on to my children," she told NBC's Today show.

"I'm focusing on their needs while also focusing on my wanting for a large family … I now know that I may or may not have wanted so many siblings, but at the time I was so focused on having a big family that I just kept going. I knew that's what I wanted."

Unmarried, unemployed for the past nine years and living in a cramped three-bedroom home near Los Angeles with her parents and six other children – the youngest of whom are two-year-old twins – Ms Suleman conceded she had little in the way of funding to back her dream.

"Money is necessary to raise children but it's paper, to me it's superfluous in contrast to my kids."

She added: "I have a plan. Every single day I'll become more ready and more ready because I don't feel it helps anybody to become overwhelmed."

But the woman dubbed "octo-mom" has triggered a furious ethical debate and drawn the ire of even her own mother, Angela Suleman.

Mrs Suleman said: "The truth is, Nadya's not capable of raising 14 children.

"To have them all is unconscionable to me. She really, really, has no idea what she is doing to her children."

She added: "It's just very difficult to cope with all this because she already has six beautiful children. Why would she do this? How she is going to cope I don't know, I'm really tired of taking care of those six."

Mrs Suleman, a retired teacher, and her husband Ed lost their previous home because they could not keep up with the bills.

They were unaware, she said, that their daughter had received $168,000 in state disability payments since suffering a back injury in 1999 during a riot at the psychiatric hospital where she worked at the time.

"She never told me. I have never received any money, not for a payment on the house or feeding the kids," Mrs Suleman said.

Despite her disability and having reportedly been diagnosed with depression and other mental health issues, Ms Suleman underwent IVF treatment – which costs around $12,000 a time – using a friend as a sperm donor for all 14.

NBC claimed it has not paid Ms Suleman for yesterday's interview, though she had been known to be demanding a seven-figure fee.

Hospital costs are already believed to run into six figures and rising rapidly each day as Noah, Malia, Nariah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Josiah, Jonah and Macai continue to make good progress.

In 1998, octuplets were born in Houston, Texas. The smallest died a week afterwards, but the seven others celebrated their tenth birthday in December.