First test-tube baby Louise Brown says it took her two and a half years to get pregnant with her second child. Her first child is son Cameron
From Angela Levin
LONDON: The world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, has spoken of her joy after becoming pregnant with her second child – six years after giving birth to a son.
Unlike her mother, Louise, 35 next week, did not resort to IVF treatment for either child.
She and her husband Wesley Mullinder, a nightclub security man, are ‘thrilled’ she is expecting naturally for the second time. But Louise admitted it had taken a long time to conceive again.
She said: ‘It took me two and a half years to get pregnant – the same time as it took with my son Cameron.
“Compared with what my mum went through, it was nothing. But I am so happy to be finally looking forward to having a brother or sister for Cameron.
“I know how desperate some women are, and how difficult it can be. I just feel grateful it has happened a second time for me.
“It can take the body a while to get back to normal once you stop contraceptive injections. I don’t know the sex of the baby and we don’t mind whether it is a girl or a boy. We just want it to be healthy.’’
Louise, an administrator for a shipping line in Bristol where she lives, was born in 1978 after her mother Lesley became the first woman to give birth following IVF treatment.
Louise is proud that her birth gave hope to countless infertile couples. But she adds: “It seems so strange now thinking back to how Mum was criticised when she went for IVF treatment because it is so common now.’’
The past year has been tough for Louise, who now speaks on fertility around the world. Her mother died, aged 64, last June.
And Sir Robert Edwards, the ‘father of IVF’ whom Louise came to think of as ‘like a grandfather’, died aged 87 in April.
Together with fellow Briton Patrick Steptoe, the Nobel Prize-winner pioneered the in vitro fertilisation technique that led to Louise’s birth.
Louise is also mourning the loss of her adored half-sister, Sharon, who died of breast cancer last month aged 52.
“This last year has truly been my annus horribilis’, she says. ‘But I hope the baby will bring a new start.’’
(Courtesy Daily Mail)
