Nadya Suleman, better known as Octomom, opened up about the trauma she experienced after birthing her octuplets in a both candid and captivating new memoir, revealing she felt “held hostage” in one shocking excerpt.
The mother of 14 revealed “she has been relentlessly seeking a publishing home for over a decade and a half” after writing a 20-chapter book detailing how she found herself thrust into the media spotlight back in January 2009.
At the time, Suleman, 46, gave birth to eight healthy babies: Noah, Maliyah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Josiah and Makai. Before her octuplets, Nadya had welcomed six other children: Elijah, Amerah, Joshua, Aiden as well as fraternal twins Calyssa and Caleb.
In one chapter called “The Great Escape,” she recalled “waking up to hundreds of reporters and news helicopters swirling above the hospital after the birth of my octuplets,” she wrote in a new Instagram post on Sunday, September 19.
The Fullerton native described how she values her “privacy immensely” and “refused to hold a press conference” because she had been hiding her pregnancy up until the delivery, despite being “urged” by the hospital’s public relations team.
While she didn’t list the hospital by name, she delivered the octuplets at Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower Medical Center.
“Nearly two hundred hospital staff (doctors and nurses included) impermissibly breached HIPAA and disclosed my medical records during my 5-week stay at the hospital,” she alleged. “They were later terminated.”
Suleman claimed one nurse “called the press disclosing that octuplets had been delivered, literally while I was still on the delivery table.”
“The medical staff allowed 70 residents to view my delivery through the observation windows,” she continued. “I was a science experiment; the main attraction in a carnival of freaks.”
Due to the national attention and “death threats directed towards me, the babies and the hospital,” Suleman claimed that she was unable to see her six oldest kids and was forced to “escape” the hospital in the middle of the night.
The social media personality, who also goes by Natalie Suleman on Instagram, was “taken to a deserted, hidden home” with security guards “in tow” who were said to be “protecting” her.
“They confiscated my cell phone, and I couldn’t speak to or see my kids, or any family,” she alleged. “The hospital gave me an ultimatum: I would only be able to see my kids if I partake in a news interview to ‘clear’ my name (hospitals as well).”
Alongside the vintage photo she shared on Instagram, the media personality revealed it was captured on “the day I was allowed to reunite with my oldest six kids” following a two-week separation. “That was one of the happiest moments of my life. I later sued the hospital,” she penned. “They apologized and settled out of court.”
Suleman said her book slowly “evolved into a memoir over the years,” having previously told fans she is still awaiting the day she can finally share her true story with the world.
A rep for Kaiser Permanente did not immediately respond to In Touch’s request for comment regarding Nadya Suleman’s claims in her Instagram post.