Octomom Puts Family in Front of Cameras to Pay the Bills
Nadya Suleman invited "GMA" into her home, said she may have more kids someday.
Nov. 24, 2009— -- It's a scene that would send shivers down the spines of even the most experienced parents -- bedtime with 14 kids and one mother.
There's the usual screeching and crying and pleading from the older six children. And, on one particularly harried evening, the oldest even lobs a screwdriver at his mom.
But for Nadya Suleman, who is known round the world as Octomom after giving birth to octuplets in January, it's just a reminder that she has the big family she dreamed of, even if life isn't always how she pictured it.
"I've basically been a science experiment for the last 10 years," she told "Good Morning America" today in an exclusive interview from her La Habra, Calif., home.
Suleman put her family in front of cameras earlier this fall for a one-hour documentary that has already aired in the United Kingdom and will air in the United States as well. The production company has the option to produce more installments and will likely resume shooting around Christmas.
Suleman earned an estimated $250,000 for the first year of access to her family.
Half of that money went straight to the care of her children, all of whom were born through in vitro fertilization.
It's the only way, she said, to support her enormous family.
"I'm dammed if I do and dammed if I don't," she told the filmmakers. "Because if I don't do what I need to do in the media to take care of and support the kids, I can't take care of them."
And yet, despite her harried everyday life and the scathing criticism she has faced in the past year for bringing more than a dozen children into the world with no way to support them, Suleman said she would not be averse to having more children in the future.
"If I wanted to do it the traditional way and get married, that's like another chapter," she said.
But, for now, she said, more children is not a consideration.
Suleman said she goes through $1,000 in food and 700 diapers in one week. She also goes through 4½ gallons of milk and at least eight loads of laundry each day. She employs a team of five nannies -- four during the day and one at night -- at a cost of about $10,000 a month.
Suleman told "GMA" that she gets two to three hours of sleep each night. And when she takes the octuplets to the park, she splits them into pairs and spends 10 minutes at a time bonding with each pair.
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