Relationships | 02/10/2009 11:40 am

Octuplet Mom on Food Stamps Gives All Eight Babies Same Middle Name, 'Angel' (Video)

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Maliah/NBC "Today Show"

Nadya Suleman introduced her eight little angels to the world yesterday. While they all have different first names, Suleman kept things relatively simple by giving them all the same middle name, "Angel." But that hasn’t stopped the controversy from swirling around the unemployed mother of 14 as we all wonder: Just how is she going to take care of her enormous family?

An interview the single Suleman gave to Ann Curry only stoked more questions about her state of mind and ability to support her huge brood. The soft-spoken octo-mom told Curry that she in no way expected to make money off her kids, and, in fact, denied receiving help from the government. We’ve included that interview below.

In addition to defending her honor, Suleman insisted to Curry that she doesn’t receive any government help. The LA Times, however, reports that she already was receiving $490 a month in food stamps and that three of her first six children are disabled and receiving federal assistance.

"In Nadya’s view, the money that she gets from the food stamp program … and the resources disabilities payments she gets for her three children are not welfare," Suleman’s publicist, Michael Furtney, told the Times. Furtney declined to specify the children’s disabilities.

Nadya Suleman did admit to Curry that she had struggled to provide for her kids, but was confident that she could take care of them, telling her, "I will do the best I possibly can … I do believe … that God will provide in his own way."

But Nadya’s own mother had harsh words for her daughter. In an interview on Radaronline.com, that included pictures of the kids’ cramped home, the clearly frustrated grandma said she was already practically raising Nadya’s six kids. "It’s unconscionable," she said. Her daughter has no means to support the kids. "She already has six beautiful kids. Why would she do this?" Suleman’s mom insists she had pleaded with the doctor not to go ahead with the fertility treatments.

That doctor has now been revealed as controversial Beverly Hills fertility specialist Dr. Michael Kamrava. Suleman apparently paid his hefty bills with some of the $165,000 in the disability payments she got after being injured while working at a psychiatric hospital.

Here’s the aforementioned exchange between Nadya Suleman and Ann Curry:

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50 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Am watching Dateline. For the first time in my life I had to turn on the closed captioning. Can’t understand half of what Suleman is saying. Don’t be misled by the clean house. Pictures of it a couple days ago showed clothes piled on the floor, food on the wall, etc. Who’s the liar here? The daughter or the mother? Oh yes……she took out student loans and was living off them, too. What a waste. Those kids will grow up learning that the way to get by in life is to get everyone else to pay for your expenses.

By Andrea Brandon on 02/11/2009 12:33 am

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A thought: she keeps saying that she’s going back to grad school [paid for with student loans]. She said that in the past she took all her kids to the child development center at the school [the free baby-sitter for students]. Gee, just think: come September they’ll be taking care of her 14 kids while she’s in classes! Wow, my taxes will be paying for this debacle. Nadja, you are so clueless. Do you have any idea what the average MA level therapist in CA makes? $45K a year. And from that you will have to pay your student loans.

By Andrea Brandon on 02/11/2009 12:56 am

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This woman lies through her teeth. She got a work injury which gave her a ton of money, so it was through workers comp., she got her money and not a small inheritance. Second, they paid for her to go to school. It is called rehabilitation. Third, why should tax payers pay for her to have babies for? When I had my five children, my husband and I paid for them, the government never paid our medical bills for us. The whole time she was pregnant with these babies, she was getting welfare for them. Look at her nails, she has fake nails which cost about twenty dollars every two weeks to keep them up. Where is she getting the money from? She is like a corporate greedy AIG monger who takes our tax dollars and spends it. These kids ought to be taken away from her and put into homes where they can be provided for properly. Really, she will not be able to send them to college, or clothe them or feed them well. She sounds nuts as well. The best thing for those babies is for child services to put them in good homes. She is working the system and doing it well. She is also on Social Security disability for her kids. That is about an additional $3,000.00 a month. You should not be collecting money for her, she has enough with all her scams. The tax payers are getting taken again.

By JoAnna Selle on 02/11/2009 5:28 am

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I would like to know how a lot of people think this woman needs help because of all these babies…which she chose to have, nobody made her have them plus the six she has already? Of course the babies are here and it’s not their fault..but why is there such an outcry when Obama wants to help people with welfare assistance or low income families, that I find hypocritcal? Helping people is just that…helping people and there can’t be a double standard here!! I feel for the children as it is not any of their fault at all, but this Mother is abusing the system and it is people like her who drain the health care system as they are not responsible people and just don’t care and yet we will end up paying for her and these children. Many people genuinely need help out there and that is the right thing to do, but when you have people like this woman who obviously couldn’t care less about the conseqences I draw the line.

By caj p on 02/11/2009 9:38 am

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Hospital personnel are not allowed to wear “false”,”acrylic” nails in an intensive care nursery. This was banned years ago after it was determined that the fungi were infecting newborns. The mother of these 8 children was on national television this evening showing her french manicure “acrylic” nails stroking the tiny infant’s faces and in general handling the incubator linens, etc. #1-Direct threat to the children #2-Since she is depending on California entitlements to raise the 8 children, it seems the manicures should go. The moral, political and financial delinquency continues.

By Sue C on 02/13/2009 12:36 am