60 year old Punjiben Patel with her son in Ahmedabad
For Punjiben Patel, a three-decade-long wait finally ended when she delivered a boy, at a hospital in Ahmedabad ten days ago. The 60-year-old resident of Mumbai, conceived through an In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) process, which doctors claim is a rarity at her age.
"We have got a new life. I had reconciled to my fate, and was never angry with the God and had left it to my fate... but am happy now," said an elated Mrs Patel.
She was married to Ranchod bhai, a Mumbai-based businessman in 1982, but remained childless over the years. For almost a decade, her husband consulted several doctors, but without any success.
Eventually, it was a friendly neighbour who informed them about the IVF technique, but the couple remained sceptical about it.
"After years of doing business, I stopped it altogether. I thought why earn money when there is nobody to take your lineage forward. I had actually thought of shifting back to my ancestral village in Kutch and do social service," recounted Mr Ranchod.
The IVF process is adopted when the conception of a child happens outside the woman's body. A woman's eggs are surgically removed and fertilised in a laboratory using sperm that has been given as a sample. The fertilised egg, called an embryo, is then surgically implanted into the woman's womb.
About a year back, the couple started the IVF process at Ahmedabad's Planet Hospital; eventually the baby was born on May 30.
"We carried out the processes very scientifically. She had entered into her menopause period for almost a decade, more importantly her uterus had undergone major atrophy (become small). We do hundreds of IVF's but at this age and with such complications the process was very challenging," said Dr Mehul Damani.
Medical experts believe that induced pregnancy at old age can create problems for the mother, but for Mrs Patel, advanced technology has created the opportunity of motherhood.