Los Angeles - Hoping to quell controversy over her multiple births, Nadya Suleman, who had octuplets last week, gave her first interview and explained that having a large family was always her dream.

The interview Thursday on the NBC television network's Today Show came amid growing criticism of how the unemployed mother of six children under the age of 8 could have been impregnated with eight embryos and then allowed to carry all of them to birth.

Suleman, 33, was interviewed shortly after she was discharged from Kaiser Permanente's hospital in Los Angeles although her newborns - six boys and two girls - remained in the hospital, all in good condition.

"I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up," she said.

Asked what she felt she lacked, she replied: "Feeling of self and identity. I didn't feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment. I felt powerless, and that gave me a sense of predictability. Reflecting back on my childhood, I know it wasn't functional. It was pretty, pretty dysfunctional, and whose isn't?"

The interview came as new details emerged that she had supported her other children with continuing payments of disability benefits amounting to 170,000 dollars.

The disability, from which she still suffered at the time she was inseminated with the eight embryos, precluded her from "prolonged sitting, standing and walking," according to official documents quoted by the Los Angeles Times. The injury was caused during a riot at a psychiatric hospital where she worked in 1999.

Suleman's publicist acknowledged earlier this week that she was fielding numerous offers to host TV shows, write books and perform other media functions that could contribute to her family's financial well-being. (dpa)