WHITTIER, Calif. —In her first interview since giving birth to octuplets, Nadya Suleman tells NBC she wanted a huge family to make up for the isolation she says she always felt as an only child.
In a brief excerpt of the interview released Thursday, the single mother, 33, tells "Today" show anchor Ann Curry that she had a dysfunctional childhood and sought to erase that with the closeness children could bring. NBC says the full interview will air Monday.
Suleman, who now has 14 children, says all were conceived through in vitro fertilization with sperm donated by a friend.
The octuplets, born last week, remain hospitalized. The others range in age from 2 to 7.
Suleman says it took seven years of trying before she became pregnant with her first child.
She collected more than $165,000 in state disability payments for an on-the-job back injury that a doctor and even she said was worsened by pregnancy, according to state documents released Thursday.
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The payments made over six years were disclosed Thursday to The Associated Press after a public-records request to the Department of Mental Health. The payments were made between 2002 and 2008, when she gave birth to most of her six earlier children.
Suleman was an employee of Metropolitan State Hospital from 1997 until December, when she resigned. Records show that for much of that time she was unable to work because she was injured in a riot at the mental hospital.
The octuplets' birth last week, and subsequent disclosure that Suleman is a single mother who already had six children, prompted a torrent of criticism and questions about why she would want so many children, why a doctor would implant that many embryos and how she would care for her family.
Suleman was injured at the hospital on Sept. 18, 1999, when a patient lost control. As employees struggled to restrain the patient, about 20 others wreaked havoc.
While restraining the patient, Suleman was struck in the back by a desk hurled by another patient.
The injury caused her pain in her back and lower body and caused disc protrusions in three levels of her lumbar spine.
Suleman took Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Darvocet, a pain medication, for the injury.
Before her injury, Suleman worked the graveyard shift as a psychiatric technician in the ward for adolescent boys. She told doctors she loved the work.
After examining her in August 2008, Dr. Steven Nagelberg attributed 90 percent of her injury to the work incident and 10 percent to her pregnancy.
During a hearing on her case in December 2001, Suleman said the pregnancy aggravated her back condition. She said she spent most of the day in bed and was unable to care for her first child, according to a report by workers' compensation judge Jerome Bulavsky.
The documents also detail Suleman's struggles to become pregnant and other personal details.
Suleman was born in Fullerton and had three failed pregnancies before becoming a mother, according to psychological evaluations in her workers' compensation claim file.
Neighbors say that while Suleman is quick to smile and wave to them, she generally keeps to herself.
"She's a very pretty woman and, yes, she's very friendly when I see her," said Thelma Steinweg, who said Suleman moved next door on the quiet cul de sac about three years ago.
"But I usually only see her going in or out of her house or on the steps, shouting at the kids when they're playing in the yard," Steinweg added.
TV and radio commentators, bloggers and others have accused Suleman of irresponsibly having more children than she appears prepared to care for. Some have accused her of having the octuplets in an effort to cash in with a TV or book deal.
