Octomom and her babies... 8 years on!
HAVING six children would leave most mothers exhausted, penniless and with no time for themselves.
Having octuplets on top of that drove Natalie Suleman to the brink of suicide.
Now, however, the woman known as ‘Octomom’ has said she is finally ‘at peace’ with her life. Ms Suleman, 42, from California, has admitted she was ‘very foolish and immature’ to have IVF six times and create her brood of 14 children.
She became famous in 2009 when she underwent a sixth round of IVF treatment to become pregnant with eight children, even though she was already an unemployed mother of six. Her children from her first five rounds of IVF are Elijah, 16, Amerah, 15, Joshua, 13, Aiden, 11, and tenyear-old twins Calyssa and Caleb.
The octuplets, Makai, Josiah, Isaiah, Jonah, Maliyah, Jeremiah, Nariyah and Noah, are currently eight years old and are the only surviving set in the world.
Ms Suleman’s woes began soon after they arrived and she ran up $650,000 of debts, which she paid off by doing a porn film and dancing at a strip club.
Describing that time in her life, she told the Mail: ‘Every day I would wake up with the most ugly, dead, visceral feeling inside
‘I didn’t want to live... I felt less than human’
of me. I didn’t want to live. I felt less than human as that character [Octomom] I was pretending to be, to survive and provide for my family. What she was disgusted me and I did not want my children to remember me like that. I was forced into doing things I didn’t want to do because I was so terrified I couldn’t support them and give them the life I deserved.’
Ms Suleman’s low point came in 2013 when she was drinking too much and taking painkiller benzodiazepine.
She said that while she was working in a strip club in Florida a tall man came up to her and said five times: ‘You do not have to do this.’ She broke down in tears and when she looked down and looked up again he was gone; she believes he could have been an angel sent to help her.
The next year Ms Suleman was charged with benefits fraud and sentenced to community service. Since then she has been recovering and Ms Suleman said that she now goes by her first name because she no longer considers herself to be Octomom. She said: ‘When I abandoned it and went back to who I really am I had that sense of peace, internal joy... I have become more grateful for every minute of every day.’
She now lives with her children in Laguna Niguel, California, and works part time as a drug counsellor. She said: ‘I am happiest at home with the kids.’