‘Octomom’ Nadya Suleman is a grandmother after mom of 14 captured ‘double-edged sword’ of America’s attention
Suleman stepped away from spotlight in 2013 but has kept up a social media presence
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Nadya Suleman, better known to most people as the "Octomom" after giving birth to octuplets in 2009 and being a mother to 14 children in total, has welcomed a new addition to the family: a granddaughter.
Suleman shared the news on her Instagram page with a photo of a baby’s foot near a pink blanket.
"Thank you my son and my lovely daughter in law (sic) for giving us this beautiful gift!" she wrote in the caption. "We are so blessed that she is a new addition to our family!"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She continued, "Baby girl you are so very loved and we can’t wait to watch you grow!!" adding that the baby’s birthday is Aug. 30, 2024.
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Nadya Suleman, who gained international notoriety when she gave birth to octuplets in 2009 and became a mom of 14, recently announced she's a grandmother. (Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Suleman did not specify which of her sons welcomed the baby.
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The California-born and raised Suleman shocked the world when she gave birth to the first surviving octuplets in history, and she faced intense scrutiny over her life and parenting.
"I was pretending to be a fake, a caricature, which is something I’m not, and I was doing it out of desperation and scarcity so I could provide for my family," she told the New York Times in 2018. "I’ve been hiding from the real world all my life."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At the time she had the octuplets, Suleman was an unemployed single mother to six children.
Suleman poses with her octuplets in 2012. (Nadya Suleman/Instagram)
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In her interview with the New York Times, Suleman said she struggled with infertility and was "misled by my doctor," intending to only have twins.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She claimed she was pressured to consent to additional embryos during implantation by Dr. Michael Kamrava.
"He told me we lost six embryos, he said they were expelled out of me, and that’s why he wanted to implant another six," she told the outlet.
In January 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported Kamrava had his license revoked by the State Medical Board of California after acknowledging he had implanted 12 embryos into Suleman prior to the birth of the octuplets. The board also said Kamrava treated two other patients negligently.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suleman said she was misled by her doctor about how many embryos were being implanted during her IVF treatment. (Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
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"I’m sorry for what happened. When I look back at it, I wish I had never done it, and it will never happen again," Kamrava said during testimony. When asked by his lawyer if he thought what he did was wrong, he responded, "At the time that I did it, I thought I did the right thing. When I look back at it, even with all those circumstances, I was wrong."
The New York Times later reported that Kamrava countered Suleman’s claim, saying she pressured him. He later left the country after a failed medical board appeal in 2016.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It took 46 doctors and nurses to perform a C-section to deliver the octuplets after Suleman went into labor at 31 weeks. All the babies were underweight, with the smallest weighing 1 pound, 8 ounces.
The father of all 14 children is an unidentified sperm donor. She told People she paid "a certain amount of money" for the samples, adding, "Not too much, but just enough so he knew that there were boundaries there. I wanted those boundaries to be really firm and know that this is a business arrangement."
"I’ve been hiding from the real world all my life."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suleman became a fixture in the tabloids as her life was questioned and picked apart.
She had previously worked at a mental hospital up to 1999 until she injured her back during a patient riot, later using her disability payments to afford her IVF treatments, the Associated Press reported.
A year after giving birth, she did an interview with Oprah Winfrey after writing the talk show host to explain her side of the story, telling her "I’m not a celebrity."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I'm a pseudo-celebrity catapulted into this big media mess. Did I want it? No. Was I in denial thinking that it wouldn't happen? Yes."
Suleman faced intense media scrutiny after giving birth. (GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)
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Suleman continued, saying, "I've done things in the media I was not only not proud of, I was ashamed of. If I were to secure something in the media, I could in 20 minutes make what I could make in two months working 9 to 5 and being away all the time. It's unrealistic. It's a double-edged sword."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Once she was thrust into the spotlight, Suleman did a variety of attention-grabbing moves to earn money, including working as a stripper, appearing in an X-rated video and nude photo shoot as well as "Celebrity Boxing." She also accepted a fee of $5,000 from PETA to be in an ad supporting spaying and neutering pets, per People.
"Everything I ever did was for money to put food on the table," she told the Daily Mail in 2016.
She continued, "Everyone thinks I had all these donations and help, but I didn't – I did everything on my own and paid everything out of my own pocket, so I was Octomom for four years. The last two years of it were so dark. I descended down a very dark and destructive path."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}One of Suleman's many money-making endeavors was doing "Celebrity Boxing." (Amanda Edwards/FilmMagic)
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Suleman also explained that she chose to do the adult content and other performances to avoid putting her children on camera in something like a reality show.
"I fully exploited and dehumanized myself with the porn and the stripping. I was so desperate we were on the verge of homelessness, so rather than put my kids in front of the camera I decided to put myself out there," she told the outlet.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suleman says she tried to limit putting her kids on camera as much as possible. (Toby Canham/Getty Images)
She admitted to plastic surgery "but not half of what the media have said I had." According to her, she had a breast augmentation that she says she paid for herself, a tummy tuck after being promised $100,000 by an undisclosed media outlet, and lip injections prior to and after her pregnancy.
"The consequence of exploiting myself was deep toxic shame and self-disgust. To continue, I had to [get] numb, and that's when I started with the prescription drugs."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suleman took Xanax from 2011 to 2013, when she checked into rehab, according to the New York Times.
In 2013, that’s when Suleman decided to "kill" the character of "Octomom."
In 2013, Suleman decided to move away from her "Octomom" public persona. (Jeff Fusco/Getty Images)
"The media created the character and I shamefully embraced it in 2009 out of scarcity and desperation to survive," she told the Daily Mail. "This is not something I ever wanted, but I think every single mother can understand the challenges we face."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She struggled financially in the interim and was charged with welfare fraud in 2013 after failing to disclose almost $26,000 in earnings. According to the Los Angeles Times, she was sentenced to two years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and had already paid back what she owed to the California Department of Health Care Services and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services.
Suleman was charged with welfare fraud in 2013. (Al Seib-Pool/Getty Images)
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As of her 2018 New York Times interview, Suleman is working full-time as a counselor, but does accept government assistance and "international photo shoots."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Suleman said she’s honest with her children about her past.
"The consequence of exploiting myself was deep toxic shame and self-disgust."
"They know, they went through it with me. It’s a huge weight lifted off of all of them when I went back to who I was. We were struggling financially, but it was such a blessing to be able to be free from that. Those were chains," she told the outlet.
And while she has largely stepped away from the public eye, she does keep up with a social media presence, including sharing photos of her children.
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Earlier this year, she wished her octuplets, Noah, Maliyah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Josiah and Makai a happy 15th birthday with a throwback photo.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I am so proud of the young adults you are growing into! Stay true to yourselves, humble, kind, and honest. I am so grateful for your love, and am beyond blessed to have you in my life," she wrote in the caption.
She also focuses on her physical health, which was heavily impacted by the pregnancy with the octuplets.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In a post focusing on fitness, she revealed she "sustained three more herniated discs (had one herniated disc from a work related injury decades ago); bilateral sciatica; damaged sacrum and peripheral neuropathy (and a torn abdominal cavity to top it off."
"Though it seems counterintuitive, the more active I am, the less pain I experience," she continued, detailing her active lifestyle, which includes weight training and cardio.