There are baby bumps and then there are baby bumps.
But there must be few women in history who have ever had a baby bump quite like octuplets mother Nadya Suleman.
These extraordinary pictures show the 33-year-old baring her stomach eight days before having her brood.
Smiling proudly, the mother-of-14 hoists her green patterned smock to show off her hugely distended stomach to the camera.
The photographs, which first went up on tmz.com, show the strain her body was under as she reached the end of her record-breaking pregnancy.
Single mother Suleman, who already had six children by IVF, used a fertility doctor to give birth to her babies.
The new pictures surfaced on the day it emerged she had fled her house in Whittier, California, to go into hiding with her older children after receiving death threats.
She has even taken on the services of a security firm to ensure the safety of her family.
Her publicist Michael Furtney said: 'There has been some really nasty stuff about wanting to physically harm Nadya, and outrageous statements about both her and her children.
'We have a security firm that we've been working with and they have certainly made contact with the police about the threats. I don't know where that will go, but we'll see'
Much of the anger surrounds the eight babies' conception by IVF.
Yesterday, Suleman launched a website, encouraging readers to give her money via credit cards and send parcels.
The American mother, who already receives a raft of state handouts to care for her growing brood, also left a message to well-wishers.
'We thank you for the love and good wishes sent to us from around the world,' she said.
And she adds that the octuplets, born on January 26, are 'all healthy and growing stronger by the day.'
The babies have been named Noah, Maliah, Isaiah, Nariah, McCai, Josiah, Jeremiah and Jonah.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Miss Suleman has three disabled children
Despite previously insisting that she will not be claiming benefits, her publicist confirmed that she already receives food stamps and child disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children.
But he would not disclose the nature of the disabilities, or the type or sum of the payments.
The news came as it was revealed that all of Suleman's children were conceived with help from the same fertility doctor - Dr Michael Kamrava.
The 57-year-old, who runs a clinic on glamorous Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California, is being investigated by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Dr Kamrava, who helped pioneer embryo implantation, is a controversial figure in the field.
'He's tried some novel techniques and some of those methods have been controversial,' said Dr John Jain, founder of Santa Monica Fertility Specialists.
He criticised the decision to implant so many embryos, saying: 'I do think that this doctor really stepped outside the guidelines in a very extreme manner, and as such, put both the mother and children at extra high risk of disability and even death.’
Dr Jeffrey Steinberg, a professional acquaintance of Dr Kamrava's, said he worked to develop an embryo transfer device that allows doctors to implant an embryo - or sometimes sperm with an unfertilised egg - directly into the uterine lining.
