Octomum and her babies ... 8 years on!
SHE became known around the world as the ‘Octomum’ who gave birth to a record-breaking eight IVF children.
Natalie Suleman said the strain of bringing up the octuplets – on top of the six children she already had – drove her to the brink of suicide.
Now however, as this happy picture shows, the 42-year-old says she is finally ‘at peace’ with her life.
Miss Suleman admitted she was ‘very foolish and immature’ when she underwent the sixth round of IVF that produced the octuplets – Makai, Josiah, Isaiah, Jonah, Maliyah, Jeremiah, Nariyah and Noah – in January 2009. They are the only surviving set in the world.
She was already an unemployed single mother of six IVF children, including twins, and quickly ran up debts of nearly £500,000. Struggling to bring up 14 children, she ended up working at a strip club.
Describing that time in her life, she told DailyMail.com: ‘Every day I would wake up with the most ugly feeling inside me. I didn’t want to live. I felt less than human as that character [Octomum] I was pretending to be, to 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.’
The low point for Miss Suleman came in 2013 when she was drinking too much and taking painkillers. ‘I didn’t want to be here, but then I thought about my children and had to keep going for them,’ she said. The following year Miss Suleman was charged with benefits fraud for not declaring earnings and a judge sentenced her to community service.
She remains a single mum and works part-time as a drugs counsellor but lives mainly off welfare payments with her family at their three-bedroom home in Laguna Niguel near Los Angeles. Miss Suleman is happiest when spending time at home and feels she has turned her life around by deciding that she no longer wants to be ‘Octomum’.
‘When I abandoned it and went back to who I really am I had that sense of peace, internal joy,’ she said. ‘Struggle is the best teacher. I have become more grateful for every minute of every day.’