Nadya Suleman’s eldest daughter, Amerah, has revealed the surprising way she found her biological father without telling her mother.
Suleman, who’s a single mother, made headlines in 2009 when she was implanted with 12 embryos by a fertility specialist in Beverly Hills. The implantation resulted in the first-ever successful birth of octuplets: Noah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Josiah, Makai, Maliyah, and Nariyah.
However, before receiving her signature moniker as “Octomom,” Suleman was already a mother of six children: Amerah, Calyssa, Elijah, Caleb, Joshua, and Aidan — all of whom she welcomed through in vitro fertilization (IVF).
In Monday’s episode of her family’s new Lifetime show, Confessions of Octomom, Suleman spoke candidly about being a single mother, with her children addressing the questions they’ve had about the identity of their father.
“I was personally never interested in who my biological father was,” Suleman’s son, Joshua, 21, said during the episode. “She explained to me that it was, or he was, a friend of hers. A donor. That’s all I needed to know.”
However, Amerah, 22, said she was itching to know who he was when she was younger. So, when she was 12, she ultimately found him on Facebook and contacted him, with her mother having “no idea.”
“Then my biological father reached out to my mom’s best friend, who then reached out to my mom,” she continued. “And my mom spoke to me, and she was like, if you want to know him when you’re 18, go for it. Reach out. And she said, ‘He’s more than happy to get to know you, just whenever you’re ready.’”
Amerah confessed that when she turned 18, she “never felt the need” to contact her biological father as she didn’t have the urge to “get to know him.”
“I just don’t know him. He’s a stranger. I understood why he didn’t want to be in our lives after the eight came,” she said, referring to her mother’s octuplets. “And that’s it. But I know he was a good friend to my mom.”
Leading up to the release of her Lifetime show, Suleman — who faced backlash for having eight children when she was already a busy parent — looked back on being pregnant. During that time, she was actually only hoping for one more baby. However, Dr. Michael Kamarava later confessed to implanting 12 embryos in her, despite saying he’d only implanted six, and lost his medical license as a result.
Still, Suleman said that while she wouldn’t change the family she now has, she regrets that she didn’t take legal action against Kamarava.
“I don’t think I’d do too much differently,” she told People in an interview published earlier this month. “I do regret not suing the infertility doctor. I definitely regret that because his insurance would’ve been the one paying, and it would’ve been some millions, and it would’ve been helpful for my family.”
She shared that when she was expecting her octuplets, she was living with her parents and struggling financially.
“I regret that I kind of threw myself under the bus to cover for him, and I shouldn’t have but I was grateful. I wouldn’t have had any of my kids if it weren’t for his innovative technique,” she explained. “No one else in the world did this type of procedure, so I didn’t have it in my heart to sue him.”
She said that she did sue the hospital for breaching HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patients’ medical records and information. According to Suleman, the hospital was the “reason why [she] ended up in the public eye.”
Back in 2009, Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Bellflower, California, was fined $250,000 for unauthorized employee access to Suleman’s medical records. At the time, 25 employees had inappropriate access to those records, with 15 of them either terminated or resigned. Eight other employees faced other disciplinary actions.
