On Friday, Feb. 20 Whittier Daily News editor Tim Traeger conducted an exclusive interview with Joann Killeen and Michael Furtney, partners in the public relations firm the Killeen Furtney Group. Up until recently, the two represented Nadya Suleman, Whittier mother to the longest living octuplets in U.S. history.

The following is a transcript of their interview:

Q - Have you had any other famous clients even close to "Octomom"?

Killeen: "Mike's mainly been corporate and I've worked in corporate. I've worked at ad agencies. I've done technology.

"When I worked for Wagner and lived in Portland, I worked on Microsoft - a little program called Windows NT and Security. So I've handled quite a few little crisis about NT being hacked in to and you know all those little types of things hackers are saying they're going to bring Microsoft down.

"But nothing to the extent of the way the world has really globbed on to Octomom and have, almost from the way we look at it, she's almost become like a cult figure.

"It was three weeks ago today that we had our initial meeting. We're a pretty well known public relations firm. We specialize in crisis communications, media relations, strategic planning, business to business. We do a lot of background papers, a lot of speeches and a lot of presentations. We do really high-level work.

"Because I'm one of the past presidents of the Public Relations Society of America - which is the largest PR association in the world - it's kind of like being in the bar at Cheers. Everyone knows your name.

"So two of Kaiser Permanente's public relations firms recommended us. We were one of four firms that specialize in crisis communications that had an opportunity to meet with Nadya while she was still in the hospital. I don't know who the other ones are.

"So we had a meeting with her and we just sat down and talked. It was pretty clear when Mike and I parked in the parking lot of the hospital. All the satellite trucks and people were everywhere.

"It reminded me of when we did Commerce because everyone was staking out Commerce and I thought, `Wow, here we go again.'

"So we got through the maze of the hospital and introduced ourselves and just sat down bedside. I said `What's going on? What are your concerns? What do you want to do? And how can we help you?' So it was just casual. It was like two ladies sitting down and having coffee. Mike was there and we just sat there and I said `OK, well here's what I think we need to work on.'

"She wanted to find a very comfortable and safe way to tell her story. She was absolutely amazed at the attention that she was garnering because she's just a mom. During that first meeting, she kept saying, `I'm just a mom. I'm just a mom. Why is everyone so interested in me? I'm just a mom.'

"And I said, `Well, you're a mom now to the longest living octuplets in American history.' And I said, `You already have six at home. A lot of moms have six, but they don't have eight through this miracle of IVF. And now you have 14 children under the age of 8. You have 10 boys and four girls. So beyond just being the most in-demand mom that you are right now, you have made history in many, many ways that you haven't even begun to contemplate here in this hospital bed."'

Furtney: "And she had been in the hospital for nearly two months. She was kind of insulated from everything."

Killeen: "She hadn't been outside that hospital in two months. So she was on bedrest for almost nine weeks in that bed, in that room, trying to hibernate and do the very best job she could to secure those children.

"She had migraine headaches every single day and chose not to take any medicine. She would be in the bed with a pack of ice on her head and that's all she could do because she wanted to secure the future of those babies she was carrying. She refused (medication) because she didn't want anything to impact her children."

Furtney: "The weird thing was that she was operating on the assumption there were seven. It wasn't until the actual birth process that there was eight. One of the nurses or doctors said, `there's a little hand."'

Killeen: "So they put their glove in and that little tiny baby hand clung on to that surgeon's glove. And that's how they found the last little guy. It was just such an amazing story.

"As she explained to us, she went to the same IVF doctor for all her procedures. Based on her medical history with the doctor, they agreed - again I wasn't there so I don't know what the conversation was about - but what she shared with us and she did share with Dateline (NBC) was that the doctor implanted six embryos and she had a single birth.

"The last pregnancy she had before the octuplets, was six embryos planted and she had twins. So she decided she still had some (frozen) embryos with the doctor.

"She was going into premature ovarian failure, so if she was going to have another pregnancy before her ovaries and her uterus completely unable to carry children, she had to make a decision. So she either was to donate those frozen embryos to science, give them to an infertile couple or destroy them.

"And because of her deep religious faith, none of those choices were agreeable to her."

Furtney said Suleman attends the Calvary Chapel in Diamond Bar.

Furtney: "I'm not sure what denomination."

Killeen: "She talks passionately about her Christian faith. She talks passionately about being pro-life and about `I couldn't give my babies away and I couldn't destroy my babies.'

"So she worked with her doctor and they implanted the same number of embryos they always had - which was six.

"This time, it was frozen embryos. Before it had always been a fresh procedure. So, technically, in the thawing of the embryos, there's a medical term called `twining.' And two of the eggs twined and split off, meaning she now had two sets of identical twins within the octuplets.

"Despite what everybody's saying, she didn't order eight, she didn't plan on eight. She thought based on what the doctor told her, Tim, it was either going to be a single birth or twins at the most.

"So she thought, `Well, I'll either have seven children or eight. I have no more embryos in storage. This will complete my family. I will go back to school in the fall. There's daycare at Cal State Fullerton. I'll bring the kids to school. I'll get my student loans. I'll be a counselor. And I'll take care of my children.'

"There was never any plan or fantasy about wanting to be the mother of octuplets. That was not anything she discussed. She was solely focused on being the best mom she could be, expecting one or two based on her medical history and what her doctor told her."

Q - So the miracle was thrust upon her?

Killeen: "Correct. Now, there's a process the doctors talk about, and was talked about a couple of times that I was on the Dr. Phil show three times, that's called selective reduction. And what the doctors do is they have you in an exam room and there's a ultrasound. And what they do is they use the ultrasound to see the fetus in your uterus.

"They can tell you the body weight of each one of them. And what they do in selective reduction is they, based on the medical expertise, they want you to look at the screen and decide which ones' the weakest fetus and which ones' the strongest. They want you to selectively reduce that fetus so that the stronger ones, the bigger ones, the more healthier ones, can survive in your uterus.

"So you inject saline solution into the heart of the fetus and you kill those babies. And that was not an option for her. That was not a choice. And she said `I cannot do that. I'm a Christian woman and I can't kill my own children. That's what selective reduction is about and nobody is willing to talk about it. If you look at the medical term, look at the IVF literature, do the research on selective reduction, it's a nice way of saying killing the weaker ones so the bigger ones, the healthier ones, can grow. And maybe you'll get two healthy ones, instead of five or six that might have medical issues."

Q - So after all this, what were your responses?

Killeen: "It was the same Friday. We left about five o'clock. We were in traffic going back home, and I said to Mike, `this would be really interesting. How many PR people get the opportunity to have the experience of working with a mom having octuplets?'

"This would be a good news story. Maybe the cover of People magazine. Maybe some women's magazines. Maybe some local photo ops when the babies go home.

"I didn't think they were all going to go home at the same time, but I was envisioning six blue blankets and two pink and I was saying to Mike, `What is the visual? A big, big basket with all these babies in to show mom. Then get all 14 kids I was visualizing this picture of the whole family together.'

"So I was thinking positive. This would be fun. Actually, pro bono wise, we would be doing this for about a week, a week and a half."

Q - What made you decide to represent Nadya for free?

Furtney: "She has no money."

Killeen: "Part of it, too, as an agency, we have been very gifted over the years. People have been very generous to us. Our clients have been good to us.

"We're part-time professors. Mike is on the faculty at Pepperdine and USC and I'm on the faculty at USC's grad school and UCLA, so our philosophy is that if there's an opportunity for us to use our skills and talents to help someone who doesn't have what we have, then we'll do pro bono work.

"I've read some reports where people think I was calling her on the phone and pitching her bedside. Which, is not anything ethically I would ever do. We have a code of ethics in PR saying we don't ambulance chase. It was by referral."

Furtney: "We both are familiar enough with the McCoy septuplets and the family down in Texas and John and Kate Make 8. We thought there was more opportunity to put Nadya in a position to have that kind of coverage and we were both surprised, startled and disappointed by the almost immediate negative reaction.

"It was within the first day that we were known to be her agency that stuff started coming over our computer in waves."

Killeen: "E-mails and voicemail messages. People would call our office and just scream profanities into the phone. `F- you! F-you!' Or they would just say, `I'll get on a plane and come to California and I hope you die!' Or, `Joann, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're old and you're tired and you're a has-been and you should be put down like an old dog. For the remaining days you have left on this planet, why don't you do something good for the universe?"'

Furtney: "And I think the major factor in those attitudes was economic. I mean they wouldn't even grant that there was any humane aspect.

"All they were pissed off about was that here we are, the state is in a terrible financial condition - at that time we didn't have a new budget - and we're being asked to not only in the past to take care of this woman and her six children that she already has at home but now we're going to be further burdened with eight more kids at a time when the state and federal government can't afford those additional expenses.

"That's so ridiculous that it's hard to even argue because even if you said, OK, the cost of Nadya and her kids in some part is going to be borne by the public system over the next 18 years, is that really going to change the state's overall financial position?

"Obviously not. But that wasn't an argument that anyone was going to accept because all they wanted to do was vent because they were having difficulties of some kind.

"Or it was contrary to their image of what a good family should be. Single moms don't matter. Lots of kids automatically make you a bad person.

"And it was fascinating to just see the absolute illogic of those arguments, but they are so insanely passionate about them you just want to suggest that maybe they seek a little help."

Killeen: "And being a woman and a mom and a grandmom some of these things came in and it's really all about in some ways, Tim, almost the woman's right to choose. Because thanks to technology, you can have a family. And traditionally you need a man to provide the sperm so you can have a family.

"But she did this all with technology and her donor friend. And a lot of men, particularly from the middle part of the country, would write in e-mails that this is just not right. We don't create a family with technology. The American family is a mom and a dad and 2.2 kids and a 1,250-square-foot house making $40,000 a year.

"That is the norm of what America believes to be the family. So you have a woman who is a part-time grad student, who had a state disability who is trying to get back on her feet after an injury and rehab herself and continue in her career as a counselor.

"She has decided that she'd save her money and use IVF because she has a history of endometriosis and fibroids and scarred fallopian tubes, so her life dream was to always be a mom. So the only way to get that was to go through IVF.

"So you have a woman's right to choose, a woman's right to choose how she designs her own family and then you have a woman who's trying to figure out creatively how to finance this. So it's not anything typical."

Furtney: "It ain't `Ozzie and Harriet."'

Killeen: "It's not `Leave it to Beaver' and it's not `Ozzie and Harriet.' It's not the typical American profile.

"And, it's Southern California. And it's in the land of entertainment. So you have all the sensational preconceived ideas of what goes on in Southern California.

"So you look at it from the point of view that men are angry, that they've been replaced by test tube and IVF. Then you have women who are saying, `Well, good for her. She has a right to do what she wants to do and if I could have gotten my family without a man I would have been a lot happier.'

"So we have people from all spectrums. We now have 88,000 e-mails to her Web site. It's only been up a week. We have almost 1,500 e-mails, closer to 2,000, that have just come in to our company Web site giving us opinions."

Furtney: "It brought our little server down a couple of times."

Killeen: "Within the first day the news came out we were helping her our server crashed three times. We had like 50,000 hits in half an hour and we couldn't handle the world traffic. Because everybody wanted to know about us.

"But what I find so amazing is that, there's a term in psychiatry or psychology called transference.

And when you are overloaded and you've got so many issues yourself, and there's just one more little thing that somehow you relate to, it pushes you over the edge. And people say, based on my interviews and the feedback they send to my Web site, `You don't get it.'

"I do get it. I've read these e-mails. People are really angry."

Q - Did you read all 88,000 e-mails?

Killeen: "Not all 88,000. I've read probably 2,000, on and off. And what happens is people expect me to respond to them. They get an automatic response that says `thank you for sending us a note.'

"Generally, they say the same thing. People are really angry. They are mad about the economy. They are mad their homes aren't worth what their mortgages are. They're made they lost their 401-K.

"They're really disappointed in the government because they pay their taxes and they've been a good citizen.

"They've controlled the number of children they can afford to have and they feel that, based on their perceptions of reading everything, they've jumped to shame and blame and judgment kind of comments about Nadya and that she has, according to them, milked the system - figured out a way to leverage the system so she can stay home and overpopulate the world.

"And I'm a criminal because everyone in public relations lies. We ALL know that they spin the truth.

"And there was a gentleman who sent me a note yesterday from the Northern California Taxpayers Association that says I can expect a criminal indictment at any time because he has analyzed all of my TV clips and my clients' interviews as well and he knows I perpetuated a fraud.

"And that I lied and he hopes that I personally will lose my business, all of my clients and he's going to send me a bill from the California taxpayers for all the medical expenses and everything else the state has had to pay for for her.

"That's not logical but it's just an example of the kind of venom and anger they're projecting on us. The only reason I think they're doing that is because she doesn't have an e-mail address. There's no way to contact her. Since we're the conduit to the world for her, we are the recipients of peoples' personal frustrations.

"We've heard from Katrina victims, and how the government has left them by the wayside and why should our client have this kind of service when we don't.

"I heard from someone who's a survivor of the Pentagon attack and how she's so angry. I've heard about people in Texas who are unhappy about something there.

"So it's just not about a mom and eight babies. It's about people being so unhappy with their own personal lives right now and projecting it and hoping that by some power that we might have to fix what's wrong in their lives right now."

Furtney: "I don't even think they want to be fixed." Mike said. "I think they just want to vent. We're the handiest target and the easiest to get to."

Killeen: "What's fascinating is people think I lied and I cheated and steal. I used to be a professional photographer when I first started out in my career.

"Yes, I took pictures of Nadya. Yes, I took pictures of her six kids. Yes, I took pictures of the octuplets. Did I have offers for lots of money for those pictures? Yes, I did. Did I sell those pictures? No, I did not.

"I signed over the copyright of those pictures to the Polaris agency so if someone wanted to buy one of those pictures, Nadya and her 14 kids would get the money, not me.

"I gave those pictures to her. Everybody thinks I'm an ambulance chaser and I took this to make money. It cost us money to represent her.

"We have investments in the Web site, the design, private security and personal security for us. We have a significant investment in her as a pro bono account without any expectation to ever be paid back.

"And that's OK. That's our commitment to help her, a mom with 14 kids."

Q - What made you give up the account?

Killeen: "How many times do you need to listen to death threats? And how many e-mails do you need to read before you get the idea that this is just not a joke.

"This is very serious. When an organized boycott by citizens in America who are so angry at our client write to our current clients - send horrible letters to our clients - call our clients, threaten our clients, telling our clients they're going to boycott their companies' products and services.

"We had one gentleman send us a letter from Omaha, Nebraska, very unhappy that we represent Union Pacific.

"He went to my Web site, pulled some quotes off there, and sent us a letter saying he had analyzed all of my TV clips and had read all the interviews and he had certified proof that I lied to the American public.

"And that the next day he had instructed his broker to buy all the shares he could possibly buy in Union Pacific Railroad so he could get a seat at the management table.

"He sent the letter to the chairman, and to the CFO and said `If you know what's good for the railroad, you'll never let these people at the Killeen Furtney group work for you ever again.' They are an embarrassment and they lied to the American public.'

"So I called him. I called him and said `Hello Mr. So And So. This is Joann Killeen, president of the Killeen Furtney Group. How are you?'

`Why are you calling me?'

`Well, you sent me a letter and I thought we could have a conversation.'

"He went off about how I lied and he had proof.

"I said, I didn't lie.

"There's a relationship between an attorney and a client called client/attorney privilege. There is a relationship between a client and public relations counselor, and it's the same thing. When a client tells you something, you believe what that client tells you.

"Every time that I conducted an interview on behalf of my client, the information at the time was accurate.

" I never lied to the media. I don't spin. I don't package lies. That's not what I'm all about. That wasn't satisfactory to him at all.

"So I finally just said I think it's better for us to agree to disagree and move on, because you have your point of view and I have mine.

"The next day, we get another faxed letter from him and he writes back and says `Well thank you very much for your call. I've concluded my investigation of the Killeen Furtney Group and I've put the folder in the file, however I will reactivate it at any time that I deem it necessary. Best of luck in the future and may you be successful in your business.'

"What I just don't understand is, this is like a tipping point. And I will, eventually, read all 88,000 e-mails because I think there' s a bigger story about what's going on in America.

"And Tim, it's just not about a mom with eight babies. Whatever this symbolically means to America, it's just pushed us over the edge.

"We've been in Iraq for over seven years. We've spent billions of dollars in the war with Iraq. Over 5,000 of our soldiers have lost their lives.

"The American public - are they writing to Congress and are they complaining like they're complaining to me about a mom with eight babies? I don't think so.

"It's not like we went shopping at Bloomingdale's. OK, there was a shoe sale. I bought too many Manolo's. I wake up the next morning, think it's not a good idea, take the receipt back and get credit.

"These babies didn't ask to be born. They're here. We can't send them back. So are we going to be angry for the rest of our lives because there's eight kids here we should be able to help?"

"America is the most compassionate country. Whenever there's an international disaster, we give money to Africa, we help with Sri Lanka, we're giving money to Unicef, we're the most generous citizens in the world. Why can't we get beyond our anger and help one of our own?

"A lady called our office and said, if every American just put one dollar in an envelope and mailed it to you, she wouldn't need state assistance, we could set up trust funds for those kids and American keep quiet.

"We waste money on coffee. We waste money on everything. One dollar. Do you know what we could do for that woman?"

"But nobody's doing it."

Furtney: "I talked to a very nice woman in Ohio who is obviously not well off. She's going to send $10 a month for as long as she can."

Killeen: "I had another mom call me from Michigan, I think. Maybe it was from Ohio.

"She said she saw me on the morning show and her two girls were watching you on TV at breakfast and the girls said, `Mom, we have to help this lady with all the babies.' So the girls got their allowance and they sent us diapers from Amazon."

Furtney: "There's a lot of good people out there. Do I think they outweigh the evil messages?"

Furtney cited USA Today about the percentage of positive comments: About a third were favorable, half are really unsupportive and the rest were between those two points.

Furtney: "I wouldn't disagree with that."

Killeen has been on Larry King twice, Dr. Phil three times, Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer, the Today Show twice, Dateline, has done interviews for Fox, MSNBC, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Insider, Billy Bush's radio show, KFI and KNX.

Killeen: "We've had over a thousand media calls from every continent in the world asking for an interview."

Furtney: "Except Antarctica and Greenland."

Furtney has done interviews on BBC. Joann has been on Paris TV, Taiwan TV, Australia, China, London, Italy, Greece, and Johanesburg.

Killeen: "They've either phoned us, e-mailed us, texted us. I've talked to more bloggers. Even Indian television networks."

Q - What do they want?

Furtney: "They want to talk to her (Nadya). That's the first question. Can we talk to her?"

Killeen: "It's fascinating. We're in the PR business and we're usually pitching reporters to cover something. So it's fascinating to see the other side where the media is pitching us. How can we get on to the top of the list?"

Q - Have you been offered money?

Killeen: "Cloak and dagger. There might be a finder's fee. We'll make it worth your while. We could pay off your mortgage if you would talk to us. If you know the sperm donor, well then you could retire. We could give you an executive producer title.

"I keep saying, `Look, we are a legitimate, ethical public relations firm. We stand by our work and our credentials.' Mike has a degree from USC. I have a degree from (Cal State) Northridge. I have a master's of communication from Simmons College.

"We're both accredited in PR. We're fellows in PR. It's not easy to get accredited and it's even harder to become a fellow.

"Plus I'm a past national president of the largest public relations association in the world. First woman president west of the Mississippi. There's only been eight women president in our 60-year history.

" So we have to have some kind of credentials and some legitimate expertise to get to where we've gotten. We don't deal in tabloid journalism. We don't deal in tabloid PR.

"People have offered all kinds of things. We just kind of took their notes, put them in a database and said `We'll get back to you. We'll talk to our client about it.'

Furtney: "I don't want that to sound like we're Pollyanna. I have seven and soon and eighth grandchild and I think about how I'd like them to be treated if I ever had the ability to control some story they were involved in, and you want to give Nadya a fair shot.

"Is her life a perfect model of everybody's image of the American family? Probably not, but that doesn't for an instant say that she should be denied anything or that she should be punished because she's living her life a little differently from what many people would say is the norm.

"If we started turning the tabloid media loose, they're certainly able to contact her and many have but I don't feel it's my role to make it easy on them."

Killeen: "And I don't feel it's our role to facilitate that kind of what I call `checkbook' journalism. That's not what we're about.

"I asked Nadya, `Now that we're part of your team, why did you select us?' And she said, `You and Mike were the only two people who came to me and sat down and said "How do you feel? What's going on? What has this been like for you?"' And she said she instantly felt safe with you, I felt that you had my best interest and that you would be strategic, and, no matter what, you would protect me."

Q - What does the future look like for the two of you?

Furtney: "Everybody in the world knows they get their 15 minutes of fame. "

Killeen: "But as public relations professionals, you're always behind the scenes.

"You work with a client and you find out what their business goals are, you write a strategic plan, you work with them collaboratively, you hope to implement the plan and get the results that impact their bottom line in some way so that it's measurable.

"I mean it's all about business and how our efforts can either increase your sales, introduce a product or whatever it is that a CEO or a company wants to achieve.

"Hopefully, we've been able to do that strategically through what we do in public relations.

"It's been three weeks today that we met Nadya. If you were to say, `Joann, did you have any idea. Or did you know?' It's like no, we had no idea that we would suddenly be the talk of the world.

"People were wanting to talk to the most important or most popular PR woman and publicist in the world, which I'm not. I'm an accredited public relations professional. There's a big difference.

"We're not publicists. But that we would suddenly be thrust front and center. That we would be the discussion of analysts, chat rooms and blogs. That my personal integrity would be attacked. That my ethics and business decision-making would be questioned, is just beyond my wildest imagination.

"That someone would attack me, would attack Mike and make judgments.

"I always say, until you walk in my shoes, you have no idea why I had to take the steps I took to survive. And every day, hour by hour, another call. Another rumor. Another message. What about this? What about this?

"The only analogy I can use is like in a political campaign. It was the art of war every single day from around the world. There were some night we only slept two hours."

Furtney: "And I won't embarrass her by naming her, but I was standing before I did a little shot with one of the networks a week or 10 days ago and there was a senior producer on the job and we were just chatting and I said, `Don't you think it's really interesting that you guys, a major news network with a long tradition of doing straight news, are just as involved in this story as any of the evening tabloids, programs or TMZ or that?'

"And she said, `Yep, it is very different than when I started my career.' It's due to two things - the advent of instant communication, which we all understand how that technology works, which is the mechanical side of it and then there's the entertainment aspect of it.

"Whether a big network that's prided itself on its news coverage for 75 years exists or not today isn't so much based on their ability to cover the news in the old style as it is to get down in the dirt with the tabloid people and really going after the most sensational item they can find and put out."

Killeen: "At the end of the day, why we did what we did was to help those eight babies.

"And it was to help Nadya, who had no idea why all those satellite trucks were outside the hospital.

"Why they were staking out her parents' house. Why they were invading her parents' privacy while they were trying to take care of her younger babies and get her other kids to school.

"That's just crazy. I reflect on that picture where the little kid is trying to leave the house with their sweat shirt pulled over his head so they could get to school."

Furtney: "Welcome to the new world."

Killeen: "I finally had to say to the media, the first day I was on Diane Sawyer, was `Stop. These are little innocent kids. Come photograph me but leave them alone. You're terrifying them. They have no idea why you're doing or what you're doing. They don't understand. There's eight new babies. They think they're going to get eight new playmates to play with in the back yard. They have no idea what's coming. Yet you guys are increasing the activity and terrorizing those kids.'

"I've seen the worst of journalism and I've seen the best of journalism.

"I've seen some really slimy tactics to try and get beyond us and get to our client. It's been not what I would have expected from a professional level of journalism."

Q - Was Nadya allegedly shopping for a $1.2 million home?

Killeen: "It's been amazing that she's been able to scrape by. We've gotten tons of e-mails from across the country from women who are angry that a mom has time to go get her nails done.

"I spent a full day of media training to get her ready for her first interview.

"She had never done an interview before. So it was my job as a PR counselor to sit down with her and explain all the questions that could be asked.

"And I had a lot of hardball questions in there. I used to be a reporter so I had an idea what Anne Curry was going to ask. And, when we were finished, there wasn't any question that I hadn't prepared her for."

Furtney: "Part of the reason she wanted to do (the first interview) with Anne Curry was also the fact that Anne's a mother and has a shared maternal attitude about kids, no matter what the number."

Q - Where do you go from here?

Killeen: "We keep saying we're going to go back to our previous life.

"What I find fascinating is we've done so much media that people recognize me now.

"Traditionally, I'm a PR professional who's behind the scenes. The one that invisibly makes things happen. But I've never been thrust forward where now people recognize me. Want to have a conversation and a dialogue with me.

"They really want me to know what they think and feel about Nadya."

Furtney: "To answer your question, I think we continue to do what we've done. We don't see any reason to change.

"Perhaps you could make an argument that having gone through this, we're a little more knowledgeable of some aspects of the media than we were prior to this."

Killeen: "The thing that surprised me the most, beside the backlash to Nadya, is the backlash to us as a company. The fact that people would go to our Web site and write or call all of our clients.

"We represented Nadya pro bono, but they decided we were crooks.

"All we tried to do is help a mom , pro bono, navigate the international media demand for information about the mother of octuplets. That's all we've done."

Furtney said eight is a magic number in some cultures.

Q - If you could rewind three weeks, knowing what you know now, would you do it again?

Furtney: "Given what we know now, we'd probably still persuade ourselves ... yeah, I think we probably would."

Killeen: "Grandma Murphy would always tell us growing up as kids, the way to grow as a person is to go toward your fears. So whatever absolutely scares you and terrifies you, that's what you're really supposed to be doing."

Q - Was Nadya right or wrong to have this many children?

Killeen: "If you listen to her story, I think she made the right decision for her. Until you've walked in her shoes, how can you say she's wrong?"