Octomom poses in bikini to support family

As her eight youngest children celebrate their first birthday,Octomom Nadya Suleman has gone from a veiny-bellied expectant mom to a scantily clad model on the cover of a supermarket tabloid....

As her eight youngest children celebrate their first birthday,Octomom Nadya Suleman has gone from a veiny-bellied expectant mom to a scantily clad model on the cover of a supermarket tabloid. A magazine cover image released by Star magazine,for their Febuary 1,2010 issue,features Suleman in a bikini.

My new bikini body! How I did it! exclaims the headline in this weeks issue of Star Magazine. In the photo,the 34-year-old smiles and poses with a thumb crooked into her red bathing suit bottoms.

A year after giving birth,the single,unemployed woman seems to have learned that one way to raise her 14 children is to exploit the celebrity media for attention and money. However,photo spreads,online videos and interviews in gossip sheets provide little insight into how she manages her huge family.

She breezes past details,telling Star she only sleeps two hours a day,has three live-in nannies and has friends who sometimes take a child for several days to ease her load. She insists shes a good mother.

Curiosity quickly turned to criticism when details of her life surfaced: She was divorced and had six other children living in her mothers house,which was in foreclosure. She was living off college loans,her childrens disability payments and workers compensation from on-the-job injuries at a state mental hospital. Scrutiny intensified when it was revealed that all her children were conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The doctor who performed the procedures now faces censure from the state medical board.

Suleman now says media deals will pay for her childrens upbringing. Estimates suggest it will cost cost 1.3 million to 2.7 million to support her children through age 17 8211; not including medical costs,based on US Department of Agriculture figures. A magazine cover story could earn between 50,000 and 75,000 for non-celebrities. Smaller items could give Suleman between 5,000 and 10,000 a pop,said media consultant Richard Laermer.

A transition to television could prove more lucrative. But the most likely networks to air a Suleman clan reality show,TLC home to Jon amp; Kate Plus 8 and Aamp;E tagline: Real Life. Drama.,have said they have no plans to do so.

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Paparazzi have tailed Suleman shopping at expensive stores,getting manicures and working out over the past year. Most of her media exposure is closely guarded. Among the hurdles for television networks are strict labor laws related to filming children. The octuplets can be filmed for a total of one hour per day,and the older kids can be filmed for three to six hours.