After days of seclusion, Nadya Suleman, who last week gave birth to octuplets, finally explains herself.

"That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family, and I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up," Nadya Suleman said to NBC’s Ann Curry during her first television interview.

In an interview scheduled to air on NBC’s "Today" show on Monday and on "Dateline" at 10 PM on Tuesday, the California mother, who had six children prior to last week’s birth, defends her decision to be a single mother of such a large family. Suleman, who is unemployed and living with her divorced parents in a three-bedroom home insisted, contrary to criticism, that she is a responsible parent.

"I’m providing myself to my children. I’m loving them unconditionally, accepting them unconditionally," she told Curry. "Everything I do. I’ll stop my life for them and be present with them. And hold them. And be with them. And how many parents do that? I’m sure there are many that do, but many don’t. And that’s unfortunate. That is selfish."

Just shortly after her release from the hospital on Thursday, Suleman met with Curry to talk about her upbringing, her failed marriage, health and her unemployment situation.

For seven years beginning in her teens, Nadya Suleman tried to conceive. She suffered three miscarriages. She tried artificial insemination and fertility drugs, to no avail. By 2000, a back injury and her inability to bear children had sent her into a deep depression, in which she told a psychiatrist that she had suicidal thoughts.

"And then the first IVF procedure from that facility — it was successful. And then I just kept going in."

The more cynical observer could simply chalk up Suleman’s octuplet adventure to nothing but a media ploy: She reportedly hoped to become a television personality talking about child care and parenting.

Suleman’s eight newborns babies, born January 26, will remain in the hospital for several weeks. Her six other children are aged 2 to 7. All 14 children were reportedly products of the same sperm, belonging to Suleman’s friend.

Click here for more of the interview.