In 2009, Nadya Suleman gave birth to octuplets via IVF after Dr. Michael Kamrava injected her with 12 embryos. Fast forward seven years, and Suleman insists that that she only wanted one more child, since at the time she was an unemployed single mother of six children. Since then, Dr. Kamrava had his medical license revoked, and Suleman has changed her name to “Natalie.” She’s also “killed” the nickname given to her by the press, “Octomom” in an attempt to move forward with her children as a normal mother. “Everything I ever did was for money to put food on the table,” Suleman told the Daily Mail . “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. Suleman did porn, took part in bikini photo shoots, all so that her 14 children wouldn’t go hungry. “The last two years of it were so dark,” Suleman admitted. “I descended down a very dark and destructive path .” Suleman “exploited” and “dehumanized” herself by stripping and getting into the adult industry, but she insists that she and her family were “on the verge of homelessness,” so she felt she had no choice. “The consequence of exploiting myself was deep toxic shame and self disgust,” she said. “To continue I had to numb and that’s when I started with the prescription drugs. “I wasn’t able to exploit myself and do what I was doing without it, which became a problem – it wasn’t healthy .” Because her line of work required her to look the part, Suleman opted for plastic surgery. However, she didn’t get nearly as much as the media claimed, nor did she spend money that was reserved for her children. “I had a breast augmentation after breastfeeding three kids, which I paid for myself as I was working,” she admitted. “I had a tummy tuck after the octuplets after a media outlet promised me $100,000 to pose nude. In 2008 she got lip injections, which left her feeling “ashamed,” she told the Mail . “The media created the character and I shamefully embraced it in 2009 out of scarcity and desperation to survive “This is not something I ever wanted but I think every single mother can understand the challenges we face.” At one point, Suleman decided she’d had enough of her job, and told her manager she was quitting. Her manager said she would face a lawsuit if she didn’t show up, so Suleman took her lumps and went to the job. After she wrapped, Suleman came home to find her 10-year-old daughter, Amerah playing dress-up in a pair of Suleman’s spiked heels. “Later on I was cleaning up in the middle of the night and I saw that heel on the stair and the kids were all sleeping,” Suleman recalled. “All my emotions I’d suppressed started to bubble out into rage and I took the heel and threw it across the house and it stuck in the wall. “It was like I’d escaped prison. That character of Octomom was dead.” These days, Suleman works as a counselor. It’s a vocation she knows well, since she was a nurse before the infamy took over her life. “Before that I worked as a psychiatric nurse for a decade – altogether on and off I’ve been in the helping profession for over 20 years,” she said. Still, it’s tough for the Sulemans to make ends meet, so they do get help from the government. “We still get a little welfare – we get food stamps,” she said “There’s a misconception of welfare. I’ve been working for three and a half years and people think I’m a lazy welfare recipient. “Everyone thinks people on welfare don’t work but welfare is supplemental. “My kids eat three times the amount that food stamps provide so I have to work to feed them. ‘I’ve been helping drug addicts and alcoholics, so I’m doing the hard work not the easy exploitative work. I’m back to who I am.’ And at the end of the day, Suleman can look her children in the eyes and tell them the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “My kids know what I did as Octomom I tell them the truth,” she said. “I’ve told them I’ve done some very bad and shameful things and they say, ‘It’s okay mom we love you anyway and we’ll always love you.’ “They know I did it for them. We don’t have kid conversations, we have deep and intellectual conversations about all of this. They are so smart and so aware.” RIP Octomom.
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Natalie Suleman: Octomom is Dead, I Had to Kill Her!
