I won't risk second IVF baby...59 is too old!

The woman about to become the oldest to receive fertility treatment in Britain has backed out - admitting her first IVF baby nearly killed her.Susan Tollefsen, 59, was due to start her course this month at a private London clinic.

But the retired teacher told The Sun: "We've basically decided the risks are too great and I'm too old.

"My advice to older women wanting children is don't risk it."

Two years ago Susan had daughter Freya at age 57.

She had to visit a Russian clinic when refused treatment in the UK because of her age.

A donor egg was fertilized with sperm from husband Nick Mayer, 11 years her junior.

But Susan said: "After I had Freya I had a burst ulcer in my stomach and I nearly died. I don't want to leave behind two young children for my husband to look after on his own.

"He is a bit nervous that we are tempting fate with my age. I should just be happy with the child I've got.

"We've been talking about the pros and cons for months and I'm worried about having another baby at my age."

Government guidelines say the NHS should not recommend IVF to women over 40.

Private clinics generally will not treat women older than 50. But doctors at the London Women's Clinic on Harley Street had unanimously agreed in January to help Susan conceive again.

The consultation was filmed for a BBC documentary.

Susan, who was quoted about £5,000 for the treatment, said at the time: "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't be treated."

But speaking yesterday at home in Laindon, Essex, she said: "We try to make the right decisions in life.

"We want a sibling for Freya for when we are not around but we had to seriously reconsider it.

"The doctors didn't have any problems treating me but I know there are huge risks. I wish I was 35 again but I'm not - and I've got to realize that, however hard it is.

"I had hoped to set a precedent for older women but that's not going to happen."

The Fertility Time-Bomb is Ticking!

Many women are risking their chances of being able to have children by leaving it too late, according to Bill Ledger, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the UK's University of Sheffield. He told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that women who chose to delay motherhood until their 30s and beyond in order to establish their careers were ignoring the implications this could have for their fertility.

Professor Ledger recommends that women planing to start a family later in life have a fertility test at the age of thirty to help gauge how quickly their fertility is declining. He helped to develop a test, launched in 2006, called the 'Plan Ahead Kit' which works out the number of eggs that a woman has left in her ovaries. From this, it predicts the woman's 'ovarian reserve' for the following two years. Professor Ledger believes the test, which costs INR 16,000 could help women make more informed reproductive choices and conceive naturally.

However, Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services and vice president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' ethics committee, and Tony Rutherford, chair of the British Fertility Society, have both voiced concerns that tests could also create a false sense of security, as egg reserves are not the only factor involved in getting pregnant naturally.

Professor Ledger said that too many women were relying on the availability of IVF as a fallback, not realising that the treatment was not freely available on the National Health Service (NHS) in the majority of cases. Last week a report showed that eight out of ten primary care trusts were failing to provide the recommended three cycles of IVF to women under 40 on the NHS.

Speaking to the Observer newspaper, Dr Mark Hamilton, the leading consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital and former chairman of the British Fertility Society, made further calls for a campaign to raise awareness of fertility issues in primary and secondary schools: 'Sexual health messages focus entirely on avoidance of sex, but this should be coupled with promotion of fertility awareness. We should be teaching everyone, from childhood up, about all the factors linked to fertility potential, and how the huge range of things from lifestyle choices to genetic inheritance can have harmful effects on that potential.'

The average age for women to start a family is now over thirty and has been steadily increasing for decades. Research shows that fertility halves by the age of 35 and declines steadily thereafter.

Woman, 66, to become oldest mother in Britain following IVF in Ukraine

A woman of 66 is set to become Britain's oldest mother, sparking a debate over late pregnancies. Elizabeth Adeney, who is four years older than the current record holder, is around eight months pregnant with what is thought to be her first child.

Adney, who is divorced, travelled abroad to undergo IVF treatment because most British fertility clinics will not offer their services to women over the age of 50.

Adeney, a wealthy businesswoman, is said to have been "desperate" for a baby, and was "over the moon" when she discovered she was pregnant.

She is still working a five-day week as the managing director of a plastics and textiles firm, and is in perfect health, friends have said.

Her pregnancy, however, is likely to reopen the debate over whether late motherhood is in the best interests of a child.

Adeney will be nearly 80 by the time her child reaches its teens.

A friend of the mother-to-be was reported to have said: "She was desperate for a child.

"She was over the moon when she learned last year that she was pregnant and has been quite open about it – it's not the sort of thing she can hide.

"Elizabeth has had a pretty good pregnancy. She has been very well, considering her age – I'm amazed how she keeps going.

"She does get up a little later in the mornings than she used to and sometimes spends an hour or two at home before going to work but she is still at her business Monday to Friday."

Adeney travelled to Ukraine last year, where a controversial IVF clinic has helped many women get pregnant using donor eggs and sperm.

She was unavailable for comment yesterday, but a family friend who answered the door at her home in the village of Lidgate, Suffolk, was aware of the publicity around her pregnancy.

"She doesn't want to say anything at the moment," said the friend.

Neighbours apparently had no idea of Adeney's pregnancy. "It's come as a shock," said one, who didn't want to be named. "I thought she was too old to have children.

"It hasn't quite sunk in yet. I don't know what to think. I don't know her that well," they added.

She is believed already to have hired a live-in nanny and has already converted a room at her £600,000 detached home into a nursery. Adeney, who is expected to give birth by elective Caesarean,

is one of a growing number of older women who have come under the spotlight for seeking IVF treatment.

Medical concerns have focused on the risks to the older mother of suffering pre-eclampsia, which can lead to blood clots and serious complications, or even death.

Britain's current oldest mother, the psychiatrist, Dr Patricia Rashbrook, was 62 when she had a son in 2006 using a donated egg from Russia.

Her case prompted criticism from campaigners, who claimed that a child's welfare would be jeopardised if their mother died while they were still young.

Laurence Shaw, a consultant in reproductive medicine at London Bridge Fertility Centre, gave his support to Adeney.

He said: "The truth is, anybody might not survive to raise their children. Until 100 years ago, our life expectancy was 50 or so, so if you had a baby at 30 you had 20 years with your child.

"Now life expectancy is 80, so is it not reasonable for someone to go through a process of fitness screening to decide whether to have a child?'

But the Church of England took a more sceptical stance, with a spokesman saying: "A child is a gift not a right.

"For those who have never received that gift we can well understand their desire to have children but it is always important to think in those circumstances about what is really in the child's best interests."

The oldest woman in the world to give birth was 70-year-old Omkari Panwar from India, who had a twin boy and girl last year.

Jacqueline Gold: I'm just so lucky to be pregnant at 48

Jacqueline Gold likes to joke that she has lived her whole life "backwards". At 48, at the peak of an enormously successful career – she is CEO of Gold Group International (which owns Ann Summers) and one of the most powerful women in British retailing – she is about to fulfil a dream that she put on hold as a young woman. Finally, at an age when most women are approaching menopause, Jacqueline is settling into her first pregnancy.
"I left home when I was 18, got married when I was 20 and started the business when I was 21 – all things that people tend to do later in life. I did the partying that most people do in their 20s in my 30s after my marriage broke down and of course here I am at 48 – five months pregnant and engaged to be married," she says, placing a small, manicured hand on the bump that already dominates her 5ft 2in frame.
Delicately pretty and softly spoken, it is difficult to believe that this woman is responsible for turning the male-dominated business started by her father David into a female-friendly preserve with a £115 million annual gross turnover. She attributes her business success to a combination of hard work, determination and creativity; qualities, she admits with a rueful smile, that she has also had to draw on in her quest to start a family.
Because, like a great many other ambitious women of her generation, Jacqueline always felt that she would have children "when the time felt right". But when it finally did – seven years ago when she met her banker fiancé Dan Cunningham, 31 – she was in her forties and infertility had become a major issue.
"I feel that evolution hasn't kept up with women," she says. "We live longer, we are healthier, we have careers and we are just not ready to have babies at the age of 20. I think it's such a shame that our bodies haven't evolved with us so that we can be fertile longer"
Jacqueline and Dan embarked on their first round of IVF in 2002 at a private clinic near the home they share in Kent. It was not a happy experience and when it failed they went to Britain's leading private IVF unit at the Lister Hospital in London where they had two more unsuccessful attempts. "The strain that IVF puts on your relationship is just incredible," she says. "It is a hard process and the disappointment when it fails is so overwhelming that a lot of couples have problems, and in 2006 it affected Dan and I so badly that we parted for a while."
When they got back together they decided to try IVF once more but this time they would go to America where the process is more advanced. "We had all the appointments over the phone here in the UK and all the medical checks and blood tests were done here and the results faxed over to the clinic in San Francisco. It wasn't until the end of three months that we finally flew out to the States late last August for the IVF."
They flew home shortly after the procedure unaware of whether or not they had been successful. Ten days later Jacqueline went for the blood test that would – when the results had been faxed through to America – reveal if she was pregnant.
"I remember driving to the hospital to have that test and being so nervous and so tense that I couldn't see properly, it was as if my sight had been impaired. I had the test at 8.30 in the morning but because of the time delay I had to wait until the evening for the result to come through. Dan and I sat by my computer in my office in absolute agony and it was just incredible when that email came through and it said 'Congratulations you are pregnant'."
Jacqueline admits that for the first few weeks of her pregnancy her elation was tempered by the fear that she might miscarry. But at 12 weeks – at the point at which she was beginning to feel safe – doctors discovered a problem.
"I am carrying twins but sadly one of them will not make it," she says. "When we found out it was devastating because even at that early stage you are very attached. I know people will say 'Yes but you have still got one healthy baby' but it doesn't work like that. It took me a while to come to terms with it. I took a few days off work and then I pulled myself together and thought 'OK, now I have got to concentrate on the healthy baby, that is my priority'."
The rare complication in Jacqueline's pregnancy means that she has to be very closely monitored, and scanned every two weeks.
"When we found out we were given the choice to have a selective termination immediately but because that would put the other baby at risk we decided to leave things as they were. At the moment they are planning on leaving me until I am 32 weeks, and then doing a selective reduction. But I may have to go to full term, which could be quite an emotional and traumatic experience."
It is a measure of Jacqueline's courage that she is prepared to talk openly about the problems she faces in her first pregnancy. She hopes that her story will inspire other women who may have had a negative IVF experience to pursue their dream. The fact that her own successful IVF outcome has brought with it new anxieties doesn't, she insists, make it any less exciting. She is absolutely determined to enjoy the experience of pregnancy.
"It's really strange but I just have this very good feeling. I know I face lots of challenges along the way but I am very positive. At first when I used to talk about the baby to Dan he would stop me and say 'let's not get ahead of ourselves'. We got to the point where I said [to Dan] 'I think if things go wrong we will be really devastated but I don't want to get to the end of my pregnancy and think all I did was worry when I should have been relishing every moment of being pregnant'."
Jacqueline is still nervous about thinking too far in the future – she and Dan decided not to know the sex of their healthy baby because they think the surprise will add excitement and ease the pain of what could be a difficult birth –- but she longs to be a mother. She will continue as CEO of the company but with the right help – and an office at home – she wants to be "totally" involved in raising her child.
She will have reached the age of 60 by the time her child is 12, but says that she is not concerned by the fact that she will be a pensioner while her child is an adolescent – or about society's unease about older mothers. "I think I will be a good mother," she says. "I don't want that to sound big-headed or arrogant. Some people might be concerned about my age but I believe I have much more to give a child now than I would have done when I was 20. The biggest part of me wants to give my child love, warmth and the security of a happy childhood. I will just be so lucky to have the chance to do that.