‘Octomom’ Nadya Suleman Really Has 14 Children and Here’s Why

While Nadya Suleman is most well-known as the “Octomom” because of the eight babies she delivered at once almost nine years ago, she actually has a total of 14 children.

In a recent interview, it was revealed Suleman, who now goes by Natalie Suleman, has the octuplets (Makai, Josiah, Isaiah, Jonah, Maliyah, Jeremiah, Nariyah and Noah) plus six more kids — 16-year-old Elijah, 15-year-old Amerah, 13-year-old Joshua, 11-year-old Aiden, and 10-year-old twins Calyssa and Caleb.

All of her children were conceived through In Vitro Fertilization treatments, which “is a process of fertilization where an egg is combined with sperm outside the body,” and her octuplets are the only surviving set in the world.

In the interview, Suleman revealed that the octuplets follow a vegan diet, but her other six children are “omnivores,” adding, “We live paycheck to paycheck. It’s a struggle every day. I am very grateful for food stamps, and I do get some residuals from that horrible porn thing. But I am not worried.”

The “horrible porn thing” Suleman refers to is a time a few years ago when she made some adult films and took up exotic dancing in order to pay the bills.

She says she was very unhappy during this time of her life and recalled, “I had to medicate to just get through what I was doing. I would mix it with alcohol which I later found out was what Whitney Houston, died from.”

“I didn’t want to be here anymore, but then I thought about my children and just had to keep going for them,” Suleman added.

Her hope for a change came when a stranger approached her at a nightclub she was dancing in and encouraged her to, saying, “You do not have to do this.”

The man repeated this five times, she says, and it had a major impact on her.

“I couldn’t control the tears that were streaming down my face. I had that ugly feeling of nausea. I looked down for a moment, and looked up and he was gone,” she recounted. “I knew I had to be my healthy self again. I didn’t want my kids not to have a mom.”

Now, Suleman works as a counselor, reaching out and helping men and women who struggle with substance abuse. She has also written a book about her life that she hopes to see published on day.

“I believe it will help inspire women to keep pressing forward despite the pain and suffering they may be experiencing. If you set a goal you can achieve anything,” she concluded.