Natalie “Nadya” Suleman, the woman known for giving birth to the first surviving octuplets in history in 2009, is opening up about the media frenzy surrounding the birth of her children — and the trauma it caused.
In an interview with Today.com published on Friday, March 7, Suleman, 49, shared that the hospital in which she gave birth held a press conference without her approval, which contributed to the immense and unwanted media attention that ensued.
“I thought for a while I wouldn’t be able to survive it,” Suleman told Today.com while recalling that time in her life, adding, “I didn’t allow myself to process any emotion or feelings. I just was, you know, on autopilot.”
Suleman also revealed that she felt pressured into giving a media interview — and even into hiring a PR manager — by the hospital immediately after giving birth, despite the fact that she did not want to do so.
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“In retrospect, I would have refused. I didn’t even know I had that right as a patient to refuse. I wish I had some legal assistance at that time,” she told Today.com.
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Suleman — who already had six children and was not employed when she got pregnant with the octuplets via IVF — also told the outlet that she believes she would have faced less public scrutiny had she been with a partner at the time.
“If I were in a relationship and were married, it would have acted as a buffer to being a target of that hate, of that downward social comparison,” she said.
Suleman is now telling her story in her own words through the Lifetime docuseries Confessions of Octomom, which premieres on March 10, along with I Was Octomom, a Lifetime movie based on her life.
“I attempted for 16 years to share, here and there, my truth, but I’ve never had an opportunity to share the full story, the true story,” she told Today.com.
In a recent exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the mom of 14 shared that there were constant “false narratives” about her in the press after she gave birth to her octuplets in 2009 — perhaps the most common one being that she used welfare and government money to have more children.
“That was a lie,” Suleman told PEOPLE. “I did not use taxpayers’ money.”
“I’d saved so much money working as a psychiatric technician at a state psych hospital. I saved well over a hundred thousand dollars. I used all of that money,” she continued. “Instead of buying a house I bought in vitros. I also had an inheritance close to $60,000 that paid for it too, which I’m not proud of. It should have gone for my older kids. I also got student loans, but I paid for everything, period.”
“For years I was typecast as the welfare recipient, unemployed mother, all of which is wrong,” Suleman said.
I Was Octomom premieres March 8, while Confessions of Octomom premieres March 10, both on Lifetime.
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