Natalie “Nadya” Suleman is cautiously stepping back into the spotlight.
It’s been 16 years since she made headlines and history, giving birth to the world’s first surviving octuplets, a feat that earned her the nickname Octomom and led to a chaotic life of infamy before she retreated from the spotlight in 2013.
Now back in front of cameras thanks to a new Lifetime film I Was Octomom and subsequent docuseries Confessions of Octomom, premiering March 8 and 10, respectively, and featuring her octuplets and six older children who were all born via IVF, Suleman is taking stock in her incredible, at times harrowing journey. She opens up to PEOPLE exclusively about it all.
“Natalie Suleman is just a mom of many and she is very, very, very grateful,” she says of herself, sitting down for a shoot and interview with the majority of her children. “We are a loving family and we’re there for each other. All of my kids are just very humble, grounded, kind people with good hearts.”
But why choose to have so many of them? The answer is complicated and dates back to her youth. “I wasn’t happy as an only child, and clearly I projected my dream onto my kids and wanting a big, well, not this big of a family, but I did want seven kids,” she explains.
“But it’s not enough to say I wanted a big family because I was lonely,” she adds. “There is an amalgamation of factors. I wanted kids to create maybe a safe and predictable little world that I lacked growing up. So then of course, I projected onto my future family.”
When it came time to become a mom, there was no stopping her. “When I set my mind to achieving a goal, I am laser focused and then I hyper-focus, and then I work relentlessly to achieve the goal,” she says. But in retrospect, she says with a laugh, “I may have possibly overachieved with kids. I didn’t intend on having this many.”
Suleman had multiple back-to-back rounds of IVF administered by Dr. Michael Kamrava who helped her conceive all 14 of her children. But both Suleman and Kamrava came under fire after news spread of the octuplets’ birth, her difficult financial situation and how he had implanted her with 12 embryos, well above the recommended standard practice of two.
For her last pregnancy Suleman says she was hoping for “just one more” baby. Kamrava, who initially told her he’d only implanted six embryos, later admitted to implanting double that and was ultimately stripped of his medical license.
Thinking back on that time and the choices she made, “I don’t think I’d do too much differently,” says Suleman. “I do regret not suing the infertility doctor. I definitely regret that because his insurance would’ve been the one paying, and it would’ve been some millions, and it would’ve been helpful for my family.”
Suleman, a single mother and grad student living with her parents at the time, says she scraped together the money for her procedures, but has struggled since the very beginning to support her large family.
She continues, “I regret that I kind of threw myself under the bus to cover for him, and I shouldn’t have but I was grateful. I wouldn’t have had any of my kids if it weren’t for his innovative technique. No one else in the world did this type of procedure so I didn’t have it in my heart to sue him.”
“But I did sue the hospital because they breached HIPAA,” she says of some hospital employees who reportedly shared her name and medical information with the press. “They’re the reason why I ended up in the public eye.”
As for anything else she wishes she did or didn’t do, says Suleman, “we all have 20/20 [vision] in hindsight.”
I Was Octomom premieres March 8, while Confessions of Octomom premieres March 10, both on Lifetime.
