A mum at last at 51 - read it and weep
In Adelaide Advertiser .... a story to bring hope or despair
:
A mum at last, at 51
04sep05
FOR 10 years Val Backhouse tried to fulfil her dream of having a child.
She and her husband spent more than $50,000 on fertility treatment and suffered the agony of losing seven babies.
But they never lost hope. And all the sorrow and frustration of those years turned to elation when Mrs Backhouse – who turns 52 today – gave birth to a boy.
Yesterday, cradling baby Alex, she spoke of her joy at starting a family 34 years after she wed – and revealed that she now wants to try for a brother or sister for Alex.
"It shows that women who really want a child should never give up," she said. "I'd go through it all again."
Mrs Backhouse and her husband John, who live in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, put off having a family while saving for their house and, in 1990, she began four years of caring for her dying mother, whose wish was that the couple should have a child.
Mrs Backhouse – then 41 – and her husband spent a year trying for a child.
After a miscarriage, a large cyst was found on her ovaries and she could not manage to conceive naturally again.
With Val too old for IVF on Britain's National Health Service, John, now 58, worked 12-hour shifts six days a week making concrete breezeblocks to afford private treatment.
Medics said Val's own eggs were too old and she had to use donor eggs to become pregnant with triplets in 2000, but miscarried.
Val was referred to Manchester's Alexandra Hospital in 2001 when doctors found two more tumours. "We thought, `That's it'," she said, "but doctors managed to save my womb."
In 2003 Val resumed IVF treatment and became pregnant with twins but more heartbreak saw one miscarried and the other stillborn.
Last year, when Mrs Backhouse was 50 – Britain's upper limit for IVF – Dr Rashmi Patel agreed to a final IVF course and almost immediately Val became pregnant with twins.
One twin died and there was a new ordeal a month before the survivor was due: Mrs Backhouse was diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood pressure condition. But, at last, baby Alex Reece was successfully born on March 18.
"I look at him now and I still can't believe it. He is a little miracle," she said.
