Anyone who has ever had difficulty having a baby knows how painful and upsetting it can be to try everything possible to become a parent. So when a lucky couple does manage to conceive after years of pain, it can feel like a miracle.
When an Australian news presenter announced she was finally pregnant at the age of 48 years old, everyone congratulated her on her miracle baby. In the wake of the exciting news, however, she came out with the real truth about how her baby was conceived and claimed nothing about it was miraculous.
Fertility Issues
To avoid fertility issues, doctors often encourage women and couples to start thinking about having children and trying to get pregnant earlier rather than later. The reason is that a woman’s fertility starts to dramatically decrease by her mid-30s, which makes having a child naturally much harder.
Not Ready For Parenthood
However, for a variety of reasons, not all women who dream of becoming mothers are ready to have a child in their 20s or early 30s. Some of those reasons include not being with the right partner to have a baby with or wanting to focus on their career.
Dreams Of Motherhood
For Sonia Kruger, a 53-year-old Australian television presenter and media personality, the reason she never had a child earlier in life had a little bit to do with both of those reasons. While she wanted to become a mother one day, she had devoted herself to her career.
No Time For A Baby
Throughout her career, Kruger has worked as an entertainment reporter and was the host of Australia’s Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother Australia, and The Voice Australia. Now, Kruger is the co-host of a daytime talk show, Today Extra, alongside Australian singer and actor David Campbell.
A Marriage Breakdown
To keep up with the demanding work schedule, Kruger didn’t have time to even think about having a baby. And after her marriage to James Davies, a British banker, fell apart in 2008, she wasn’t in the right place in her life to consider motherhood.
The Right Time
The following year, however, Kruger began dating her current partner, Craig McPherson. By that point, McPherson already had six children from a previous relationship. Yet the pair decided they wanted a child of their own and started trying to get pregnant.
Trying To Conceive Naturally
Over the following few years, Kruger and McPherson tried to get pregnant but failed to conceive naturally. And the few times she did get pregnant, she would suffer a miscarriage. By the time Kruger was 45 years old, she decided it was time to go see a specialist.
The Proof
Kruger had heard of plenty of women, especially famous women, who had gotten pregnant and given birth to healthy babies while they were in their late 40s and even early 50s. She knew that it might be difficult for her to get pregnant but assumed that it was definitely possible.
A Crushing Discovery
So when the 45-year-old went to a doctor to see about IVF, she was crushed when the doctor told her that her chance of getting pregnant and giving birth to a baby was zero. “You start to view yourself as a failure,” Kruger told the Herald Sun about the experience.
Staying Hopeful
Despite the odds, Kruger decided to go ahead with IVF, as she refused to give up hope that it was too late to become a mother. She had heard countless stories of mothers who refused to give up and had their miracle babies and believed she could have her miracle too.
A Miraculous Announcement
Then in August of 2014, it appeared the television presenter had, in fact, gotten pregnant with her own miracle baby. At 48 years old, Kruger announced that she was pregnant and that she and McPherson managed to conceive via in-vitro fertilization.
Determined To Be A Mom
“Her strength of character and determination kept her going to have this baby,” Dr. Lynn Burmeister, the clinical director at Monash IVF where Kruger underwent treatment, told the Herald Sun. “Many women give up at some point in time. I think she even said, ‘I have never given up hope.’”
The Miracle Baby
In the wake of the pregnancy announcement and Kruger’s announcement in January 2015 that she had given birth to a healthy baby girl at 49 years old, headlines across the country announced that Kruger had become a mother to a miracle baby.
Not A Miracle
Considering the chances of a live birth from IVF is just 18 percent for women over 40, and the fact that those chances drop to just 1.1 percent if the mother is over 54 years old, it really did seem like a miracle. However, Kruger came out and revealed a miracle had nothing to do with her becoming a mother.
Admitting The Truth
In the wake of the exciting news, Kruger came out and announced that science, not a miracle, was the reason she had finally managed to become a mother. According to Kruger, Dr. Burmeister, science, and a generous friend who donated an egg allowed her to give birth to her daughter, Maggie.
A Donor Egg
“I have a very good friend who gave me an egg, and that’s how this pregnancy came about,” Kruger said in an announcement after Maggie’s birth. “I’m thrilled to bits. I feel incredibly appreciative for what she did for me and the fact that it worked, because for a long time I didn’t think it would.”
Accepting Reality
Kruger also explained that in order to have Maggie, she had to accept the fact that her own eggs were no longer viable and that she would need an egg donor if she was going to be a mother. “When I went into that first round of IVF (around 45) I learned that my chances of success were zero,” Kruger said.
Learning The Truth
“I was surprised by that information because, like a lot of women, I’d seen high-profile women fall pregnant in their late 40s and thought, ‘Well, it’s possible.’ But I didn’t know the details until the doctors said, ‘Make no mistake; these women will have used egg donors,’” Kruger explained.
An Eye-Opener
“It was a real eye-opener for me. I just felt it was really important not to misrepresent (how she got pregnant, or the chances of falling pregnant naturally in your late 40s) to other women out there. I knew there were a lot of women in my age bracket who will be wondering how it happened,” she added. “Sonia always said to me she was not going to lie and pretend it happened naturally,” Dr. Burmeister said. “She wanted the word out there, she wants women to think about it and start planning their families earlier.”
An Important Message
“I think Sonia Kruger has to be congratulated for being so open about her own situation and saying there’s ‘no miracle involved here,’” Your Fertility national education project spokesperson Louise Johnson told the Herald Sun. “To Sonia Kruger’s great credit, she actually came out and said it,” Fertility Society of Australia president Dr. Mark Bowman added. “Almost everybody, particularly famous everybodies, that use donor eggs never admit to it. It’s incredibly unfair to send a message to the wider female fraternity that ‘I took herbs and got fit and got pregnant.’”
