40 years after marriage, first-time mother at 60

CHENNAI: Sixty is the age that most women in Palani become grandmothers, admits Saraswathi. “It is fate that I should become a mother at this age,” she says with a smile. After remaining childless through four decades of being married to her husband Lingeshwaran (66), she delivered a boy, Sabaraivelan, on July 28, after treatment at the Balaji Fertility Clinic at Palani. “All these years, everywhere we went, people would ask us ‘how many children’ and we would always hang our heads. Finally, our turn has come,” she says with pride.The rumours about her infertility had not eased at any point during their marriage, she recounts and even admits, “After a point I decided not to go out in public to avoid all these issues.” After several unfruitful consultations with doctors, astrologers, country medicine experts and the like, the couple had lost hope of ever having their own offspring. That’s when they caught a lucky break. “One of my friends had managed to conceive after 18 years of childlessness after treatment here,” says Saraswathi. They consulted Dr Senthamaraiselvi, the founder of the clinic, who personally attended to the case.Normally, women can conceive through in vitro fertilisation (test tube baby) at any age, says the doctor, but points out that the wall of the patient’s uterus was weak. “We had to carefully induce the embryo transfers till she was found to be pregnant,” she adds.While 35 is generally the ideal age for an IVF procedure, there is only a 20-50 per cent chance that the procedure will be accepted by the woman’s body. After a few attempts, the pregnancy test on December 14 last year turned out to be positive, much to the couple’s delight. “As this was a high-risk case, we set up a special team of doctors to monitor Saraswathi and the child at regular intervals to ensure there was smooth birth,” says Dr Senthamaraiselvi.