Calif. octuplets become longest-living set in U.S.

updated 3:40 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2009

BELLFLOWER, Calif. - The octuplets born to a Southern California woman have become the longest-surviving bunch in U.S. history.

The six boys and two girls — whose names have not been released — turned a week old Monday at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center.

Their mother, Nadya Suleman, has been inundated with hundreds of offers a day for book deals, TV shows and other business proposals, her publicist said.

“She’s the most sought after mom in the world right now,” Joann Killeen said. “Everyone wants to talk to her. Everyone wants to meet her. People are offering her book deals, TV series, just about anything you can imagine.”

Suleman, who remained hospitalized with her children, hasn’t decided what she’ll do next, Killeen said. It wasn’t immediately known when the children or their mother would be released from the hospital.

Suleman, a single mother, already had six children, ages 2 to 7, when she gave birth to her octuplets on Jan. 26.

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“Right now her top priority is to be the best mom she can be to all her children,” Killeen said, adding Suleman will be carefully evaluating the business opportunities being offered to make sure she can support her family.

The mother of 14 does want to eventually tell her story to the world, Killeen said.

“As soon as she’s able, she will tell her story, and it’s an amazing story,” Killeen said.

Suleman retained the Killeen Furtney Group public relations firm on Friday, after the hospital referred them.

The country’s first set of octuplets was born to Nkem Chukwu of Texas on Dec. 20, 1998. A week later, the tiniest of the infants died of heart and lung failure. The baby, named Odera, weighed only 10.3 ounces at birth. The surviving seven siblings celebrated their 10th birthday in December.

Suleman’s mother told The Associated Press last week that her daughter has always loved children and had wanted to be a mother since her teens.

Suleman had all of her children through in vitro fertilization, according to her mother, Angela Suleman, who is caring for the other six while her daughter is hospitalized.

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