I know that these days, it's not shocking when women older than 40 years old give birth, something that in my mom's time would have been huge news. In fact, when my own mom had me, she was past 30 years old, and was told many times she was "too old" to be having children. Even though this is changed, I'm not sure if it's changed enough for me to see as "normal" the recent news that a woman in Brazil became a mom for the first time: Antonia Leticia Rovati Asti gave birth this past week to twins!
For more than 30 years, Rovati Asti had dreamed of having kids, until thanks to artificial insemination performed by Dr. Orlando de Castro Neto, she finally was able to hold in her arm her twins, Sofia and Roberto, who were born in Sao Lucas hospital in Santos, a city in Brazil.
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Dr. Castro Net explained that in 2002, he had frozen 10 embryos that were left from a failed fertilization attempt that Rovati Asti and her husband, Jose, had gone through (back then they had tried to implant the eggs, which were fertilized with Rovati Asti's husband's sperm, who said to EFE news agency that he'd "work hard to put food in their mouths").
The first time the couple contacted Dr. Castro Neto and expressed their desire to become parents was back in 1992, after years of trying and failing. They had already attempted to adopt a child after deciding they couldn't have children naturally; although they had all the requirements necessary to do this, even back then their age was an insurmountable obstacle for officials in Brazil.
Dr. Castro Neto has been trying to make this couple parents for the last 20 years. And now, after all this time they finally succeeded. The doctor says that the age of the mom wasn't a factor to deter him; if anything, he says, her greatest challenge will be the society's stigma toward women who have babies so late in life.
Honestly, this couple should be a source of inspiration for people who are desperately trying to become parents. I think at their age dealing with lack of sleep and diaper changes–and everything that comes with being a first-time parent!–will be hard, in the end, it's the love of a mamá Latina that can conquer all. Don't you think?
Image via Daily Motion
