Originally appeared on E! Online
Nadya Suleman is working on her fitness—and so are her 14 kids.
The 49-year-old, who was famously given the nickname “Octomom” after having the world’s first set of surviving octuplets, recently shared a glimpse into her family’s active lifestyle.
“Healthy, fit family,” she wrote in a Dec.15 Instagram post, alongside photos of her and her kids spending time in the gym, “staying strong and thriving together.”
While the mother of 14 posed in a black and gray workout set, her kids took to some of the workout equipment—though one of them ended up using the machinery as a pillow. And if that isn’t proof enough that Nadya is encouraging her kids to prioritize health and wellness, she also included pics of her veggie-filled grocery haul, homemade juices and a vibrant salad paired with a bowl of fruit.
In addition to her 15-year-old octuplets Noah, Maliyah, Isaiah, Nariyah, Makai, Josiah, Jeremiah and Jonah, Nadya is mother to Elijah, 23, Amerah, 22, Joshua, 21, Aidan, 18, and 17-year-old twins Caleb and Calyssa, all of whom were conceived through IVF.
“Thank you God for blessing my son Joshua and lovely daughter in law with this beautiful gift,” she wrote in the caption of her Sept. 22 Instagram post, alongside a photo of the infant’s tiny foot. “We are so grateful she is a new addition to our family!”
“Baby girl you are so very loved,” she added, “and we can’t wait to watch you grow!!”
While Nadya now only occasionally gives insight into her family life, she has previously shared how the unexpected fame and public attention that came with the birth of her octuplets was extremely difficult to cope with.
“I was pretending to be a fake, a caricature, which is something I’m not, and I was doing it out of desperation and scarcity so I could provide for my family,” she told the New York Times in 2018. “I’ve been hiding from the real world all my life.”
In fact, she admitted her quick rise to fame caused her to suffer from PTSD.
“I would take whatever I could back in the days, and I would let them in,” she said of the influx of reporters that reached out to her at the time. “I was spiraling down a dark hole. There were no healthy opportunities for Octomom.”
“I was doing what I was told to do and saying what I was told to say,” she continued. “When you’re pretending to be something you’re not, at least for me, you end up falling on your face.”
After all, she never asked to be thrust into the spotlight.
“I’m not a celebrity,” she told Oprah Winfrey in 2010 after writing to the talk show host to request an appearance to share her side of the story. “I’m a pseudo-celebrity catapulted into this big media mess. Did I want it? No. Was I in denial thinking that it wouldn’t happen? Yes.”
