We’re getting our first look at the woman who gave birth to the world’s first surviving set of octuplets in a California hospital last week.

In an interview with NBC’s Ann Curry on Thursday, Nadya Suleman, 33, says she tried for seven years to get pregnant before she successfully conceived with in-vitro fertilization at a local facility – “and then I just kept going in.”

“That was always a dream of mine, to have a large family, a huge family, and — I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up,” she explains.

Before the arrival of her six new sons and two daughters, Nadya was already the mother of six.

She blames her frequently-occupied uterus on a dysfunctional childhood.

“I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I really lacked, I believe, growing up,” Nadya tells Ann. “I didn’t feel as though, when I was a child, I had much control of my environment,” she told Curry. “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 dysfunctional, and whose isn’t?”

Visit PEOPLE.com for more excerpts from Nadya Suleman’s interview with Ann Curry

Watch the full interview on Today this Monday and on Dateline Tuesday, airing @ 10 p.m. EST on NBC.