Octuplet mom Nadya Suleman’s father, Ed Doud, was on Oprah yesterday. The guy was really subdued and a little boring and he made excuses for his daughter throughout. You could see how he enabled her to have so many children just as he insisted that he kept telling her not to do it. Ed admitted he spoiled Nadya rotten as a child, and he seems to have continued that into her adulthood.

Nadya was invited on Oprah contrary to her statements that she would have welcomed the chance
Doud was invited on Oprah after he contacted producers. Contrary to what Nadya said about wanting to go on Oprah, she was indeed invited according to the talk show queen, who said “My team had been asking to do an interview with her.” I bet they weren’t paying enough.

Likens Today interview to kidnapping, said Nadya was still drugged up at the time
Nadya’s father said it wasn’t a kidnapping per se when he daughter was interviewed by Ann Curry, but he sure described it like one. “They took her out of the hospital by midnight to a secret location. They did not even give her a chance to rest, to sleep, where she’s still under medication and not feeling well.” [via US Weekly]

On how he found out his daughter was pregnant with so many babies
Doud described how he heard that his daughter was pregnant with what was thought to be seven babies. His ex-wife called him up while he was working in Iraq to say that Nadya was pregnant and in the hospital. He then decided to come back. He called the fact that Nadya had eight healthy babies a “gift from God.”

As for whether he was ok with Nadya getting pregnant all those times, he said he was ok with “maybe one or two” and called more than that “irresponsible.” He said he had a talk with Nadya about how expensive it was to raise children back when she just had two.

Doud has just $100 in the back
Ed Doud said he had $100 in the bank and could only stay for one or two weeks before he had to go back to work in Iraq. He got choked up when he said “do I really want to be 10,000 miles away from my grandchildren that I love?”

On telling Nadya’s doctor that he was putting a burden on their family
Ed said he answered the phone once when the IVF doctor called for Nadya, only to find out that his daughter was pregnant for the fourth time. It turned out to be twins. Ed told the doctor that he was putting an enormous strain on the family by allowing Nadya to get pregnant again, and the doctor kept saying “I did not know, I did not understand. I’m sorry” The doctor’s excuse was that Natalie was very intelligent and educated. He went on to enable her to get pregnant twice more.

Nadya always promised “no more” after each child
Ed said he “always” had a conversation with Nadya about her level of responsibility in continuing to have children, but that she said “she knows what she’s doing, she loves the children, she wants more, but ‘this is it, no more.’ Always. Every time this happened, ‘that’s it, no more.'”

On the babies being given by God
As for whether they need help, he said they do, and “do not punish my daughter for what she had done. Do not punish the babies because they were given by God.”

“If God did not want this to happen, he could have destroyed these embryos when they implanted in her before they were successfully born.”

Oprah asked “Doesn’t God give people choices?”

The audience applauded and Ed said “absolutely.”

Oprah said “She chose to go to a doctor and get these babies implanted. And she chose to have six implanted. She made that choice, and now that the babies have come, everyone says ‘Well it’s God’s will.”

Ed answered “It is God’s will. If God did not want these babies to survive – that’s God.”

Oprah pressed “Was it God’s will for her to make that choice,” and Ed said “Yes. It is religious. She has embryos, frozen embryos. To her, these are her babies.”

Dr. Oz calls Nadya “selfishly delusional,” says children face health problems
Dr. Oz came on and was very animated. He said that “ultimately this is a form of cruelty [to the children]”

He also said that Nadya was “a very bright woman, but selfishly delusional.

“There is a relatively small chance that all eight of those kids will grow up to be normal adults. There’s going to be a chance of cerebral palsy, developmental delays, emotionally, mentally, vision problems, hearing problems. These kids would fit into my palm. To think that they would be able to grow normally despite being in the hospital and getting all this care they’ve got is unlikely.”

“This is a major failure in professionalism. What the physician did… was not fair. When you put six embryos in a patient you now have seven patients… you risk those lives by implanting them all at the same time.”

I really liked what Dr. Oz said about Nadya after a woman chimed in from Washington via Skype to defend her.

“The reason I think folks are nervous and anxious about this situation is they want to help the kids, but to help the kids you’ve got to go through the mom, and you’re not sure you trust the mom.

“If I send $100 to mom right now is that going to go off for a pedicure or to help the child?”

Ed raised his hand and said “Send it to me.”

Photos from Oprah.com