Woman, 57, thought she had cancer - until doctors told her she was 30 weeks pregnant. Now she'll give birth in days
By BETH HALE and HELEN WEATHERS
Last updated at 15:47pm on 22nd March 2008
A woman of 57 with suspected ovarian cancer was in fact expecting her first baby.
Susan Tollefsen feared the worst when she was sent to hospital for a scan on her growing bump.
But the sonographer told her: "Congratulations, you're almost 30 weeks pregnant."
She will become one of Britain's oldest mothers when she has a caesarean section next week.
The remarkable story, which she describes as an Easter miracle, follows-several years of attempts to have a baby by IVF treatment at foreign clinics.
The special needs teacher and her partner Nick Mayer, who is 11 years her junior, thought their final hope had been dashed last August when she suffered what appeared to be a miscarriage.
Yesterday they told the Mail their remarkable story as MS Tollefsen describes the baby girl she is due to have this Easter as a "miracle".
Not only is she about to become a first-time mother at the age of 57, but she found out she was pregnant just eight weeks ago.
Referred to hospital as an emergency after a physical examination by a private GP had revealed a "hard abdominal mass", she had been bracing herself for the worst.
Clutching a paper with the suspected diagnosis "Ovarian Cancer?????" on it, she burst into tears as she waited for a scan.
"I was lying on the examination table thinking, 'I'm going to die' when the sonographer turned round to me and said 'Congratulations'," says Susan.
"My initial reaction was to think, 'What a terrible way to tell me I've got ovarian cancer'. When he then said, 'You're pregnant' I was literally speechless.
"I still couldn't believe it when he showed me the screen and said, 'Here's the head, here are the arms and here are the legs'. I was even more shocked when they told me I was almost 30 weeks gone."
The astonishing news was given to her at the private Nuffield Hospital in Brentwood, Essex.
Susan adds: "While I'd been waiting for the scan I'd phoned Nick at work in tears and said, 'You'd better get over here, they think I've got ovarian cancer'.
"When he arrived after the scan I had to say to him, 'Sit down while I make you a coffee. You are going to need it. I'm pregnant.'
"First he was stunned and then he burst into tears. He was thrilled. It was the very last thing we'd both been expecting."
The pregnancy, confirmed on January 24, is the result of Susan and Nick's third and last attempt to become parents through IVF treatment using donor eggs.
When Susan started haemorrhaging within four weeks of two fertilised embryos being implanted at a Russian fertility clinic, she went to her GP who, she says, told her she had miscarried.
A blood test and a home pregnancy test appeared to confirm this by showing negative.
Although she carried on bleeding heavily - which eventually led her to believe she was seriously ill rather than pregnant - she now believes she miscarried one of twins while the other managed to survive.
Today, the couple's home in Romford is filled with baby paraphernalia and an air of nervous excitement as they count off the last few days to next week's elective caesarean which will bring their daughter - already named Freya - into the world.
There are, of course, the obvious concerns about Susan becoming a mother at such an advanced age but the couple's greater worry is for Freya's health, given the problematic pregnancy.
"We are terribly excited about having our first baby but also very nervous about whether she will be all right," says Susan, who has worked in education since 1975, first as a special-needs teacher and then as an adviser on behavioural issues.
"All the scans have shown that she is developing normally but we won't know for sure until she is born.
"In the first few months of the pregnancy we went through some very stressful times. Our house flooded and the ceilings fell down, so there was a lot of heavy physical work.
"I was eating whatever I wanted and taking strong painkillers for my bad back.
"I was prescribed antibiotics when I went down with a chest infection and also progesterone, because I was bleeding heavily and the doctor thought it would correct over-production of oestrogen caused by the IVF treatment.
"So of course when I found out I was pregnant my first thought was, 'Is the baby going to be OK?'
"When I asked the doctors what would happen if there was something seriously wrong with her, I was told, 'Well it's too late now. You are 30 weeks pregnant. You'll have to go through the birth and then decide if you want her adopted if she is disabled.'
"That is a very frightening thing to be told and I was particularly worried by the prescription drugs I'd taken during the early months.
"But the doctors didn't seem too worried and we are just hoping the scans, which indicate she is normal, are right.
"Nature never ceases to amaze me. I'm astounded that Freya survived all the things that were happening in my life. It must have been meant to be."
London-born Susan, daughter of an English mother and Norwegian father, says she always dreamed of having children but circumstances conspired against it.
Her four-year marriage to Bruno, an Italian restaurateur, ended in divorce in 1984 before they had even had a chance to think about children.
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