Nadya ‘Octomom’ Suleman’s Oldest Daughter Speaks Out About ‘Anger’ She Felt After Siblings Were Born

Nadya “Octomom” Suleman’s oldest daughter, Amerah Suleman, opened up for the first time about the “anger” she felt after her mom gave birth to the world’s first surviving set of octuplets.

“Growing up from the ages of birth to 6 years old, right before the eight were born, my mom basically gave us anything we wanted,” Amerah, 22, told People in an interview published on Monday, March 10. “She definitely did spoil us. She made sure we had everything and anything we wanted or needed.”

Amerah was 6 years old and one of five children when her mom gave birth to eight babies in 2009. She said things changed drastically once her family doubled in size overnight.

“Then when the eight were born, she tried to maintain that normalcy, I guess you could say with us,” she explained. “But slowly down the line, throughout the years, it trickled. We got tighter and tighter and tighter with money. We were penny pinching. And I remember just having a lot of anger.”

Amerah said she was forced to give up extracurriculars like cheerleading because they couldn’t afford it anymore. “‘What do you mean I can’t do my sports or do the things that I’ve been doing my whole life because we have to save money?'” she explained.

In addition, as the news went viral, the overwhelming media attention became challenging for the family to handle. “The paparazzi and the media, it was confusing, frustrating, upsetting, all of those things combined into one,” she said. “But going through it, there was a lot of emotions from all of us.”

Nadya previously opened up about her finances after she was accused of using government funds to pay for the costly IVF treatments used to conceive her large family. In 2008, she was famously implanted with 12 embryos — resulting in the birth of the world’s first surviving octuplets — by Dr. Michael Kamrava. The doctor’s medical license was later revoked by the California Medical Board, as medical guidelines advise implanting no more than two embryos at a time.

“I did not use taxpayers’ money. I’d saved so much money working as a psychiatric technician at a state psych hospital. I saved well over a hundred thousand dollars,” she told People on March 6. “I used all of that money. Instead of buying a house I bought in vitros. I also had an inheritance close to $60,000 that paid for it too, which I’m not proud of. It should have gone for my older kids. I also got student loans, but I paid for everything, period.”

The mother of 14 said the “biggest misconception” was that she “wanted fame,” as she later sued the hospital because they breached HIPAA and were “the reason” her pregnancy hit headlines. California health regulators ultimately fined Bellflower hospital for $250,000 over the privacy breach.

“I did whatever I needed to do to make ends meet. And that was shaming myself, sacrificing my integrity. The life I was leading was not only destructive, it was dark. It was the antithesis of who I am as a person,” she explained, noting she left the spotlight in 2013 to pursue her former career as a therapist and focus on raising her family.