LA HABRA, Calif., March 18, 2009
Media Mob Scene At Octuplets' Homecoming
First 2 Brought To Suleman Family's New, Larger Home In L.A. Suburb; Others Still In Hospital
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Nadya Suleman, media lights reflecting in glass, arriving home Tuesday night with the first two of her octuplets to leave the hospital (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
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The newfound celebrity of their mother, Nadya Suleman, reached a fever pitch. Scores of photographers, reporters and gawkers who had staked out her new house for hours clung to her vehicle as she arrived home late Tuesday in a homecoming reminiscent of the scenes that have surrounded Hollywood's infamous celebutantes in recent years.
Lara Spencer, of "The Insider" and Thea Andrews, of "Entertainment Tonight," were the only two reporters in the house when the infants got there, and told about the experience on The Early Show Wednesday.
Spencer described the scene at the house as "total chaos."
Suleman was sitting with her babies in the back seat of the SUV as it churned through the crowd and went straight into the garage of her new four-bedroom, three-bath home in La Habra, about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, where she will raise her 14 children.
The media mob shoved and pushed as their cameras flashed, with some grabbing and riding the vehicle until the garage door closed despite being dented and nearly pulled off its tracks. Helicopters overhead captured it all on video.
ET/Insider cameras in the vehicle recorded Suleman saying into a cell phone, ""They're (media members) all over and they're making them (the babies) cry."
"It did get a little bit scary," Spencer recalled, "when the paparazzi tried to get into the house. They went into the garage." Still, she says, Suleman seemed "totally calm in the midst of this."
One neighbor who did not identify herself described the crowd's behavior as "ridiculous."
"It was so awful," the woman told KCAL-TV. "I can't believe people would do that to her. It's really sad. All the paparazzi hanging on to a car like that? It's really crazy."
Suleman, an unemployed divorced mother, gave birth to the octuplets nine weeks premature on Jan. 26 in another L.A. suburb, Bellflower. She already had six children, ages two-to-seven.
The octuplets - who at birth weighed from 1 pound, 8 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces - spent their first seven weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. The first two babies to be discharged - Noah and Isaiah - are each about 5 pounds and are able to bottle feed, the hospital said.
Spencer and Andrews got to give them bottles in the house, they report.
They watched as the older siblings met the new arrivals.
The other two girls and four boys continue gaining weight and will be released another day, the hospital said.
They'll probably come home in groups of two, Spencer notes.
"This is a happy moment for everyone - the family, physicians, nurses and entire NICU staff," said Dr. Mandhir Gupta, a neonatologist at the medical center. "It is always rewarding whenever a premature infant goes home as a healthy baby."
Several neighbors joined other onlookers to take in the scene.
"We wanted to see the 'octomom," ' said neighbor Johnny Euentes, 46, who lives around the corner and waited with his wife and son on the cul-de-sac. "I've got nothing else to do tonight; I'm just missing American Idol."
As Suleman's vehicle pulled in, Euentes switched from gawking to crowd control as he tried to pull photographers off the SUV and keep them out of the garage.
Video posted on Radaronline.com, where Suleman has been posting a video diary, showed the SUV pulling into the garage from the inside, and screams could be heard for the photographers to get out. Laughter is audible from inside the vehicle after the garage door closed.
Two caretakers in scrubs help Suleman take the babies into the house after she shows them off to the camera, and Suleman's older children are shown kneeling and fawning over their baby brothers.
"My head is just going to just burst," Suleman says.
Suleman's mother then chides her to pay attention to one of her older sons and complains of the lack of blankets in the house.
The babies' historic births were initially met with curiosity and celebration, but a backlash against Suleman grew as the public learned that the 33-year-old mother had few means to support her brood.
In recent weeks, Suleman has been seen squabbling with her mother on Internet videos, and led tours of her new home for paparazzi.
Last week, as Suleman made last-minute fixes to make the home safer for the delicate infants, she had a televised baby shower on the "Dr. Phil" show.
Suleman said she is paying for the house - listed for $564,900 - with money from "opportunities" she has selected, but did not elaborate on what they were.
But, Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman has pointed out, that story keeps changing. She at one point said the house was leased, not bought. There were also reports it is in her biological father's name.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
If they don't seal the deal that she's nutts, nothing will.
I just saw on radar.com she lying in bed talking about the babies father... it must be nice to have all that free time to sit and talk out of your rear-end. good thing she's gotten all these hand-outs. it really sends a irresponsible message to our youth. will anyone who needs help get these volunteers to come over - I know a few people who's like the extra help so they do their corny hair-dos and nails everyday.
They are paying her for everything and they were the ones who started the filming as the babies were taken out of the SUV in the garage.
Everything is a photo op for Nadya and the children are nothing but money makers for her.
I usually have to pay MY hospital bills. Why doesn't she?
You sound a bit jealous....you looking for a hand out too!!!!
Posted by catherine195 at 9:27 AM : Mar 18, 2009
Her father bought it for her.
Posted by catherine195 at 9:27 AM : Mar 18, 2009
Actually, she does have money now.....from the "opportunities" she has selected...and from the multiple websites that are taking paypal donations for her. My favorite is the one that doesn't even spell her name correctly.
More interesting to me is whether she is going to use some of that money to bring her mother's mortgage up to date (after it fell behind by about $20,000 while the grandmother was paying for all other children's needs not covered by the state checks), if she's going to just let her mother lose her house, or if she's going to have her mother move in with her to help raise the 14 children so Nadya has even less to do herself.
What an incredibly misleading statement. The babies are gaining weight and eating on their own. Are they "healthy"? Well, let's see. Two were born suffering from ELBW and the other six with VLBW. Over the next few *years* Mom will get to find out if they are among the 8-21% of ELBW/VLBW babies with mental retardation, the 9-22% with poor cognitive function, the 9-27% with poor academic skills, the 9-27% with poor gross motor function, the 14-25% with poor adaptive function, the 6-9% with cerebral palsy, the 5-25% with severe visual disability, and/or the 13-24% with hearing disability. (The higher the birth weight the lower the chance. The very worst numbers are for babies born weighing less than 750 grams. The smallest of the octuplets was born weighing just over 680 grams.)
A study published in JAMA in 2005 followed over 200 ELBW babies until age 8 and found 14% to have cerebral palsy; 21% to have asthma; 10% to have vision worse than 20/200; nearly 40% to have an IQ lower than 85, which approaches a mental deficiency; and nearly 50% with poor motor skills.
Yep, great PR statement, doc. Much better than being honest with people about the very real consequences of making choices like this.
future non-stop yelling and screaming from 14 kids. If I were the neighbors, I'd move ASAP.
- by eeyorelvr March 18, 2009 9:16 AM EDT
- Why were the "reporters", etc. allowed to use flashes to take pictures? Full-term newborns shouldn't be exposed to the flash of cameras, let alone these little human beings! Hopefully there is film of each and every person with a camera, who is, at the very least, disrespecting these little minor (regarding age) children. The photographers are profiting. I know I would have been very upset if that had been my children. Their mother, though, doesn't have the "luxury" of telling them to get the h___ out of there because if she inhales the world will attack her method of exhaling! How in the world-if people are SO concerned about the well being of these children-were those people allowed to mob that vehicle!?!?! Just because America wants to know doesn't mean that it's Americas business!............................................... To those of you that will scream that "it's your tax dollars that are supporting them.....and blah, blah, blah.....so you "have the right to know...." ....you're saying that because you personally contribute a few cents you have the right to watch those tiny humans be harassed?
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