OCTUPLETS GRANDFATHER TO APPEAR ON OPRAH THIS TUESDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2009.

Photo via Harpo Productions

Ed Doud, the father of California octuplet mom Nadya Suleman, has done his first nationally televised interview – with Oprah Winfrey.

During the exclusive chat, Doud reveals how he found out about his daughter’s pregnancy, how the family is coping – and also sheds a few tears about the situation.

"You know, she needs help," he tells Winfrey, defending the Web site that was recently launched to support her 14 children. "I say to everybody now, people, we do need help. Do not punish my daughter for what she had done and do not punish the babies, because they were given by God."

Doud doesn't mince words when addressing his daughter's decision to carry eight babies to term, calling Suleman, 33, and the fertility specialist who implanted six embryos in her womb "absolutely irresponsible."

Suleman has faced even more scrutiny since it was revealed that she supports her large family, in part, with the help of food stamps.

The babies' grandfather maintains caring for Suleman's 14 children will be a family affair. His greatest hope? "To stay healthy … and to have my grandchildren – all of them – to be healthy, and the mother to finish her schooling and start working," he says. "We all could support this family."

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a frequent contributor on Winfrey’s show, also joins Doud and the talk show host in the episode to discuss the ethics behind the actions of the fertility specialist and Suleman.

Source: PEOPLE

Taxpayers may have to cover octuplet mom's costs.

A big share of the financial burden of raising Nadya Suleman's 14 children could fall on the shoulders of California's taxpayers, compounding the public furor in a state already billions of dollars in the red.

Even before the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother gave birth to octuplets last month, she had been caring for her six other children with the help of $490 a month in food stamps, plus Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters. The public aid will almost certainly be increased with the new additions to her family.

Also, the hospital where the octuplets are expected to spend seven to 12 weeks has requested reimbursement from Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, for care of the premature babies, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cost has not been disclosed.

Word of the public assistance has stoked the furor over Suleman's decision to have so many children by having embryos implanted in her womb.

"It appears that, in the case of the Suleman family, raising 14 children takes not simply a village but the combined resources of the county, state and federal governments," Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten wrote in Wednesday's paper. He called Suleman's story "grotesque."

On the Internet, bloggers rained insults on Suleman, calling her an "idiot," criticizing her decision to have more children when she couldn't afford the ones she had and suggesting she be sterilized.

"It's my opinion that a woman's right to reproduce should be limited to a number which the parents can pay for," Charles Murray wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles Daily News. "Why should my wife and I, as taxpayers, pay child support for 14 Suleman kids?"

She was also berated on talk radio, where listeners accused her of manipulating the system and being an irresponsible mother.

"From the outside you can tell that this woman was playing the system," host Bryan Suits said on the "Kennedy and Suits" show on KFI-AM. "You're damn right the state should step in and seize the kids and adopt them out."

Suleman's spokesman, Mike Furtney, urged understanding.

"I would just ask people to consider her situation and she has been under a tremendous amount of pressure that no one could be prepared for," Furtney said.

Furtney said he, Suleman and her family had received death threats and had been getting messages that were "disgusting things that would never be proper to put in any story." Read more at the AP website...

What a cute baby named Maliyah up there! Please absolutely refrain from death threats as that is against the law!

YOU CAN MAKE A DONATION OR SEND ITEMS TO THE SULEMAN CHILDREN AT FAMILY WEBSITE.

Nadya Suleman's Publicists have set up a website with the Octuplets' photos and also a portal where you can donate to the family. There is also an address you can send items to all the children too including the older siblings. Ann Curry did an in-depth profile of the family on last night's Dateline NBC where we met the other siblings. One child, Aiden has Autism. Click here now to visit the site.

UPDATE: Despite the controversy surrounding the California mother who gave birth to octuplets last month, donations have been flowing in to the Web site created for the massive family, FOXNews.com has learned.

God is great! They remain in our prayers....

Octuplet Mom Impregnated by Beverly Hills Fertility Doctor.

Suleman Octuplets courtesy of NBC

The mother of octuplets was implanted with those embryos at a Beverly Hills fertility clinic run by a well-known — and controversial — specialist who pioneered a method of implantation.

Dr. Michael Kamrava's name emerged Monday as a result of an interview aired Monday on NBC with Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight babies Jan. 26.

Kamrava, 57, would not comment on the issue, but told reporters outside his clinic on Rodeo Drive that he had granted an interview to one of the television networks. When asked to provide more detail, he said, "Watch the news."

Without identifying the doctor, the Medical Board of California said last week it was looking into the Suleman case to see if there was a "violation of the standard of care." The medical board said Monday it has not taken any disciplinary action against Kamrava in the past.

Suleman told NBC that she does not intend to go on welfare, though her publicist confirmed Monday that Suleman already receives food stamps and child disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children.

Suleman's publicist Mike Furtney said she receives $490 a month in food stamps. Three of Suleman's previous children are disabled, Furtney said, but Suleman did not want to disclose the nature of the disabilities, or the type or sum of the payments.

"In her view these are just payments made for people with legitimate needs and are not, in her view, welfare," Furtney said. "She just believes that there are programs for people with needs and she and her children qualify for some of them."

We will continue to keep Nadya and her children in our prayers.

Source: FOX News

SULEMAN OCTUPLETS MAKE THEIR WORLD TELEVISION DEBUT.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Maliah, Noah, Jonah, Isaiah, Nariah, Jeremiah, McCai and Josiah made their TV debut today.

The octuplets, born two weeks ago, were introduced to an expectant world by their mother, 33-year-old Nadya Suleman.

Guiding the TV cameras through the hospital wards where the babies are likely to remain for several weeks, Suleman placed a hand on each tiny head and said a few words in a sing-song voice. "Hi, Maliah, your eyes are open," she said to the first.

"Hi, Josiah," she continued. "I wish I could stay all day long, but I can't. Your brothers and sisters at home want to see you ... I can't wait until they're all together. We are not a whole family."

The size of her whole family has become an issue in recent days, replacing the celebratory tone that was struck when the births were announced.

Suleman, who is a single and living with her parents, already has six children. All 14 have been conceived using in vitro fertilization, all with sperm from the same donor.

As medical ethicists have questioned the role of the clinic that implanted the embryos, others have pointed to the cost of the births and the troubles, both financial and medical, that may lie ahead for the family.

Suleman denied that taxpayers were footing the bill for her children. "I'm not receiving help from the government," she told NBC. "I'm not trying to expect anything from anybody. I just wanted to do it on my own. Any resources that someone would really, really want to help us, I will accept, I would embrace.

"I will feed them. I will do the best I possibly can," Suleman continued. "And in my own way, in my own faith, I do believe wholeheartedly that God will provide in his own way."

She also denied that she had the octuplets to make money. "That's funny how untrue that is," Suleman said. "Money? Money is necessary to raise children. But it's - it's paper. It is paper. To me, it is superfluous in contrast to the importance of my kids."

During the interview, Suleman identified the clinic that had treated her as the West Coast IVF Clinic in Beverly Hills, California. The same clinic helped her conceive her previous children.

The sperm donor remains anonymous, although Suleman said that he was shocked by the birth of the octuplets.

Source: Guardian U.K

Octuplets Mom Not Getting Showered With Gifts reports the AP.

The AP reports......Where is the lifetime supply of diapers, formula and baby wipes? The free van? The brand-new house?

Women who give birth to six, seven or eight babies are often showered with dazzling gifts from big corporations, local businesses and strangers. But that is not happening with the Southern California mother who delivered octuplets last week.

The news that she is a single mother with six other children — and that all 14 were conceived by having embryos implanted — seems to have turned off many people, and companies are not exactly rushing to get publicity by piling on the freebies.

Nadya Suleman, 33, has been lambasted by talk-show hosts, fertility experts, even her own mother, who has her hands full taking care of Suleman's other children, ages 2 to 7.

A veteran Hollywood publicist said Suleman's handlers have their work cut out for them in trying to win public sympathy for her.

"I think it's a calamity," said publicist David Brokaw, who has handled crises for celebrities. "I don't see, the way this is shaped, how you can say much about it in terms of something favorable."

Makers of diapers, formula and other products would probably want to steer clear of her, Brokaw said. He suggested she lie low for now and concentrate on crafting an image as a responsible parent.

Gerber spokesman David Mortazavi said that if the baby-food maker was planning to do something for the family, it probably would have done it already, and that the octuplets' birth was not on Gerber's radar. He would not elaborate.

Procter & Gamble spokeswoman Tricia Higgins said that the maker of Pampers does not actively seek out parents to sponsor, but that the octuplets' mother can ask for what is typically provided in multiple births: a jumbo pack of diapers for each child, baby wipes, and coupons for discounts. That is unlikely to last Suleman a week.

Conservative radio talk show host Bill Handel in Los Angeles, who has branded the births "freakish," said on the air Tuesday that people ready to boycott any corporations that help the octuplets or their mother.

Suleman's spokesman Mike Furtney said that he has received some "fairly negative" comments from the public but that offers to help with the babies have come in from nurses, and some baby stores have stepped forward to volunteer their support.

"I don't remember the brand name, but one major disposable diaper company sent some diapers," he said. Furtney said he was confident that once Suleman tells her story, many of her critics will "readjust their thinking a little."

Furtney said Suleman has had offers for TV and other media deals, but he added it was too early to discuss how much money she might receive.

For a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7 million through age 17, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Suleman octuplets' medical costs have not been disclosed, but the average cost for just one cesarean birth in 2006 was $22,762 in California. The Suleman babies were born nine weeks premature. In California, a single premature birth in 2006 led to an average hospital stay of 25 days and cost $164,273. That would amount to a $1.3 million bill for eight.

Suleman's income is unclear. She was employed by a mental hospital from 1997 through 2008.

Nasty callers dominated the phone lines in the first few days after the octuplets were born at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center.

"We heard a lot of outrage because there was a vacuum of information and people were going on rumor and conjecture," said hospital spokeswoman Socorro Serrano.

But calls of encouragement, particularly from mothers of multiples, have also poured in, along with offers of hand-me-downs and tips, Serrano said.

In 1998, Nkem Chukwu of Houston became the first mother to give birth to octuplets in the U.S. The family lives in a donated, six-bedroom suburban home, and the stay-at-home mom had a small army of volunteers help feed and care for the seven surviving babies for the first few years.

The parents of the McCaughey septuplets — seven babies born in Iowa in 1997 — received a donated 16-room house, a 15-passenger van, baby food from Gerber, and a lifetime supply of Pampers from Procter & Gamble.

The stars of The Learning Channel's reality show "Jon and Kate Plus 8," about a couple with sextuplets and twins, are paid, and have received a slew of freebies through the show, including trips to Hawaii and New York, a tummy tuck for Mom and hair plugs for Dad.

TLC President Eileen O'Neill said production companies that work with TLC have already made offers to Suleman's family, but the network is waiting to see how TV-friendly the family is.

"We're certainly like the rest of America; we're waiting to see how this develops," O'Neill said. "The number of children or scale of the multiples is intriguing, but it also comes down to what are the family's lives like?"

My Octuplets and I are praying for this family everyday

Octuplets’ mother wants Oprah to turn her into a $2m TV star.

This story surfaced in a British newspaper today.

The single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2m from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children.

Nadya Suleman, 33, plans a career as a television childcare expert after it emerged last week that she already had six children before giving birth on Monday. She now has 14 below the age of eight.

Although still confined to an LA hospital bed, she intends to talk to two influential television hosts this week — media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and Diane Sawyer, who presents Good Morning America.

Her family has told agents she needs cash from deals such as nappy sponsorship — she will get through 250 a week in the next few months — and the agents will gauge public reaction to her story.

Her earning power, though, could be diminished by a growing ethical and medical controversy. Experts believe that the unnamed fertility specialists who gave her in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should not have implanted so many embryos, and in choosing to carry all eight to term, Suleman ignored guidelines, risking both their health and her own.

US public reaction has been mixed: many have asked how an unemployed single mother can raise 14 children, as her first six have already strained the family budget. Angela and Ed Suleman, Nadya’s parents,bought her a two-bedroom bungalow in the suburb of Whittier in March 2007, but soon after got into debt and had to leave their own home.

They filed for bankruptcy and moved in with their daughter and grandchildren. Last week her father said he would return to his native Iraq to work as a translator and driver.

Angela Suleman, who is caring for the first six children — one of whom is autistic — while her daughter is in hospital, said yesterday that she had consulted a psychologist over Nadya’s “obsession with children”.

Nadya Suleman, who describes herself as a “professional student” living off education grants and parental money, broke up with her boyfriend before the birth of her first child seven years ago.

The identity of the octuplets’ father remains unknown, but local reports suggest they were conceived with frozen sperm donated by a friend she met while working at a fertility clinic. He is the father of her twins, born two years ago.

Source: The Times