LOS ANGELES — A dozen children are now in Nadya Suleman’s care after two more of the world’s longest surviving set of octuplets arrived home from the hospital.
Makai and Jeremiah were released from Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center on Thursday, exactly two months after their births.
“Over these past several weeks we have seen these little ones flourish, grow stronger each day, which is rewarding for each of us who have cared for them,” said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at Kaiser. Nannies who are being trained by Kaiser nurses are helping Suleman take care of the children.
The babies were born nine weeks premature on Jan. 26, weighing between 1 pound, 8 ounces, and 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Makai and Jeremiah, like their siblings who went home earlier, now each weigh more than 5 pounds.
The smallest octuplets, Jonah and Josiah, remain in Kaiser’s neonatal intensive care unit. The hospital would not release their weights or say when they might go home, but said they are doing well.
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“They just need more time to develop and grow and tolerate food,” Kaiser spokeswoman Beth Trombley told The Associated Press.
The first pair of infants to go home were greeted March 17 by a crush of reporters and photographers in the quiet cul-de-sac in La Habra, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Another pair, both girls, went home Saturday in secret, at Suleman’s request.
Suleman, unmarried and unemployed, already had six children, ages 2 to 7, before giving birth to the octuplets. She has said all 14 children were conceived through in vitro fertilization.
It’s unclear how she’s paying for the nannies helping her care for the children. The 33-year-old mother has been jobless since 1999, living on disability payments, food stamps and student loans.
She had recently fired a nonprofit nursing group helping her, Angels in Waiting, saying they were intolerably negative. The group says it was fired because of complaints it made to child welfare officials questioning whether the children would get adequate care.
Suleman has said she is paying for the four-bedroom, three-bath home she recently moved into with money from “opportunities” she has selected, but did not elaborate.
RadarOnline.com is paying her to appear in frequent — and sometimes unsparing — videos about her life, her lawyer has said. But details of the deal were not disclosed.
The latest arrivals were greeted by only three photographers and were escorted by a police patrol car and a motorcycle through the city, said La Habra police Lt. Tom Dutton.
“The first time we were not notified and were taken a little off-guard by the media frenzy,” Dutton said. “We finally had dialogue with a representative of the family, an attorney, and were able to prepare for this.”
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