Octomom Nadya Suleman's Daughter Contacted Her Biological Father on Facebook at 12 but 'Never Felt the Need' to Reach Out Again

Nadya Suleman’s kids are sharing how much they know about their biological fathers.

During the March 17 episode of Confessions of Octomom, Suleman, 49, revealed that she always intended to raise a big family on her own. She used two sperm donors — one she knew and another anonymous from a sperm bank — to conceive her 14 children.

But in the new episode of the Lifetime series, her kids opened up about growing up with a single mother and their curiosity around the identity of their father.

“I was personally never interested in who my biological father was,” said Suleman’s 21-year-old son Joshua. “She explained to me that it was, or he was, a friend of hers. A donor. That's all I needed to know.”

While Suleman’s oldest son Elijah declined to talk about it, her oldest daughter Amerah, now 22, said she was very curious about her father’s identity when she was younger. In fact, she once went behind her mom’s back to learn more.

“I actually found him on Facebook when I was like 12,” she shared. “I did reach out to him. My mom had no idea that I did that. And then my biological father reached out to my mom's best friend, which then reached out to my mom. And my mom spoke to me, and she was like, if you want to know him when you're 18, go for it. Reach out. And she said, ‘He's more than happy to get to know you, just whenever you're ready.’”

“But after then, I never felt the need to,” she continued. “I don't have the need to get to know him, not because — I just don't know him. He's a stranger. I understood why he didn't want to be in our lives after the eight came and that's it. But I know he was a good friend to my mom.”

The “eight” Amerah is referring to were the world’s first surviving octuplets when Suleman, who labels herself as “aromantic and asexual,” gave birth in 2009. She previously had six kids, including two sets of twins, using a friend’s sperm. Now, 16 years later, they revealed how Suleman has answered their questions about their dad. 

“When I was like six or seven, I would see people with dads and stuff, and I asked my mom if we have a dad, and then she said that we didn't. She had a donor, and so she had it herself,” Jonah said, as Maliyah added, “He’s just a frozen donor that we don’t know at all.”

When asked if they feel a void without a father figure in their lives, octuplet Nariyah said no.

“We've never really needed like a father figure, because we have mom and we have God,” she explained. “So we've never really wanted that and I just believe I don't really need any other parent figure in my life because mom is more than enough for that.”

Suleman recently opened up to PEOPLE about her experience raising her kids and navigating questions around their complicated story.

"I'm honest, I'm very transparent with everyone," Suleman said, noting that when the time came to explain things to her octuplets, "I told them that they come from an anonymous frozen donor and I bought one, it was one dad."

Though Suleman said her kids "joke, 'Oh, so we're test tube babies?' " she emphasizes that her family is just like any others despite their unique origin story.

"Natalie Suleman is just a mom of many and she is very, very, very grateful," she said of herself, sitting down for a shoot and interview with PEOPLE beside a majority of her children. "We are a loving family and we're there for each other. All of my kids are just very humble, grounded, kind people with good hearts."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

Confessions of Octomom airs on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on Lifetime.