This social media star is about to find out if things really are cheaper by the dozen.
Veronica Merritt — better known to her 95,000 TikTok followers as Thismadmama — is expecting her 12th child.
The 36-year-old, who hails from upstate New York and also has 32,500 Instagram followers, announced the news by sharing a sweet ultrasound video with her fans on both digital platforms.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she defiantly captioned the TikTok clip, as if she anticipated a flurry of comments to come from haters.
Meanwhile, over on the ‘Gram, she boasted: “Unjust rules must be broken. Or something like that,” followed by a slew of hashtags including #cheaperbythedozen.
Merritt — who says she wants a staggering 17 children — previously told the Sun that she doesn’t use contraception because she’s “prone to blood clots.”
The Syracuse-based artist already has 11 kids, ranging in age from 21 years to 12 months. Merritt first got pregnant in 1999, when she was just 14 years old and a freshman in high school.
She gave birth to daughter Victoria before going onto marry her baby-daddy, with whom she also has a second child, Andrew, now age 16.
‘Get off TikTok and go take care of your absolutely unnecessary amount of children.’
Thismadmama is used to blunt comments like this one from her many followers on the platform
Merritt’s marriage didn’t work out, but she soon met another man who shared her passion for procreating.
Merritt and her beau, Marty, 37, have nine children together: Adam, 15, Mara, 13, Dash, 12, Darla, 10, Marvelous, 8, Martalya, 6, Amelia, 4, Delilah, 3, and Donovan, 1.
Many may be wondering how Merritt and her partner manage to support their supersize brood. It turns out they’re just as frugal as they are fertile.
Merritt told the Sun that she and Marty snapped up a nine-bedroom fixer-upper for just $20,000 last year, and boasted that they don’t even have a mortgage.
“You don’t need to buy a $200K home — save your money and buy [an] investment property,” the proud mom proclaimed.
She also bought a bus outright in order to transport her growing clan around town.
However, groceries don’t come cheap, and Merritt said she sometimes relies on government help to keep the kids fed.
“Please don’t hate me, but we do get food assistance. It’s temporary until my painting sales are more consistent,” she said in one TikTok upload.
One detractor snapped back: “Get off TikTok and go take care of your absolutely unnecessary amount of children.”
But Merritt is undeterred, and has no plans to use birth control in the future.
Indeed, she’s lived nearly as many years pregnant as she has not pregnant.
And while some may mock Merritt for her choices, she’s garnered tens of thousands of fans who tune in to TikTok to see her daily updates.
“I would watch a sitcom about you and your kids!” one fan exclaimed beneath a recent clip.
