A first-time mum who gave birth at 50-years-old has hit back at strangers who assume she’s her son’s grandma. Dawn Pullen-Lee, 52, from Treharris, South Wales, gave birth to her miracle baby boy Llywelyn after three rounds of IVF.
Determined to become a mum, Dawn refused to give up on her dream of starting a family and spent all her life savings on IVF treatments. And after finally falling pregnant in 2016, Dawn couldn’t have been happier when she finally gave birth – despite him being three weeks early.
But, two years on, Dawn says she’s fed up of strangers assuming she’s Lllywelyn’s grandma due to her age. Dawn, a civil servant said: “People on the street look at me sometimes and ask ‘are you his nan?’ “Or sometimes strangers will randomly ask ‘how often do you have your grandson at home?’
“I had always wanted children but I never met the right person. “When I met my wife in 2013, who has three children, it made it crystal clear that I wanted one of my own.
“We agreed to try IVF by using my own eggs but because I’m at a certain age they weren’t good enough. “After my first treatment I was told that I had less than 40 per cent chances of conceiving because of my age.
“What we did then was to get 30 eggs from my wife that were fertilised in the lab and the third attempt worked.“It’s amazing because part of the baby is genetically my partners too.
“Because I was 50-years-old the hospital was concerned during pregnancy and there was higher risk that it could have Down’s Syndrome or would be disabled.
“I was the oldest mum at the hospital. “I wanted to give it a go and it was our last try because we had spent all our savings on it. “I was lucky that it worked.”
Dawn had to give birth with a C-section in March 2017 and little Llywelyn was born three weeks early.
Two weeks later he got sick with meningitis and sepsis so Dawn took him straight to the hospital, where she says she faced age discrimination. She added: “We took him to the hospital with meningitis and sepsis.
“I was treated a bit suspiciously, I turned up with the baby, he wasn’t well and the nurse asked me ‘are you sure you are the mum of this baby?’ “I said ‘yes’ and then they said, ‘are you sure you gave birth to this baby?’
“I was shocked, it was the only time I had a negative experience in the hospital.”
Apart from that incident, Dawn says she has never heard any negative comments just surprised and she feels very lucky she got pregnant at her age.
Dawn says she coped well with her pregnancy and would urge other women who want to become mum’s at a later age to go ahead. She said: “I didn’t find it hard at all, I was a bit stressed because I thought I missed my chance when I reached 50.
“IVF was hard and emotional but the rest was a breeze in comparison. “My pregnancy was great, all I had was a bit of indigestion but that’s normal.
“I have had blood clots since I was 40 so it was dangerous for me to get pregnant in the first place but I’m so thankful I took that risk.
“When I went to the IVF clinic I saw they didn’t have statistics for women over 45 as so rare to get pregnant over that age. “I’m so lucky.”
