THE single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2m (£1.37m) from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children.
Nadya Suleman, 33, plans a career as a television childcare expert after it emerged last week that she already had six children before giving birth on Monday. She now has 14 below the age of eight.
Although still confined to an LA hospital bed, she intends to talk to two influential television hosts this week — media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and Diane Sawyer, who presents Good Morning America.
Her family has told agents she needs cash from deals such as nappy sponsorship — she will get through 250 a week in the next few months — and the agents will gauge public reaction to her story.
Her earning power, though, could be diminished by a growing ethical and medical controversy. Experts believe that the unnamed fertility specialists who gave her in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should not have implanted so many embryos, and in choosing to carry all eight to term, Suleman ignored guidelines, risking both their health and her own.
US public reaction has been mixed: many have asked how an unemployed single mother can raise 14 children, as her first six have already strained the family budget. Angela and Ed Suleman, Nadya’s parents,bought her a two-bedroom bungalow in the suburb of Whittier in March 2007, but soon after got into debt and had to leave their own home.
They filed for bankruptcy and moved in with their daughter and grandchildren. Last week her father said he would return to his native Iraq to work as a translator and driver.
There were reports from the grandmother of the eight that her daughter had been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager. I'm beginning to think she no longer has children, but some sort of bizarre collection. Living dolls, if you will.
Somehow I don't think this whole thing is going to end well.
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