Woman, 47, stuns medical world by giving birth to baby doctors thought was cancer… after going through the menopause
Delighted Tess Morten had given up hope of having a child after three IVF cycles, but last year scans looking for ovarian cancer revealed she was three months pregnant
MENOPAUSE mum Tess Morten gave her husband the shock news she was pregnant after returning home from an emergency hospital scan, telling him: “It’s not cancer, it’s a baby in my tummy.”
The 47-year-old, who was on HRT, had been warned by her GP to “expect the worst” in July last year after complaining for months of feeling bloated, sick and tired.
She went through the menopause six years earlier after three failed IVF cycles and feared she may have ovarian cancer as she underwent checks.
Tess recalled: “The hospital doctor was looking at the monitor as he rolled the scanner over my stomach and said, ‘Your ovaries are fine but look at this.’
“I looked at the screen and could see a baby. I said, ‘Is this mine?’
“The nurse was holding my hand because I was scared it was bad news. I cried because I never thought it would happen to me.”
Tess then returned to their Reading home in complete shock at learning she was three-and-a-half months pregnant.
Her worried husband Neil, 52, was there looking after their three foster children.
She said: “Neil was worried because I hadn’t phoned. He saw me smirking as I pulled into the drive and came to the door.
“I whispered, ‘It’s not cancer, it’s a baby in my tummy.’ He was mouthing swear words. He was over the moon.”
The couple returned to the Royal Berkshire Hospital 24 hours later for a second scan — which showed a tiny girl sucking her thumb.
Tess added: “We were blown away. Then we went through all the worry of the scary tests because I wasn’t meant to be pregnant. But luckily everything came back OK.”
She eventually gave birth to their healthy 7lb 14oz daughter in January, naming her Molly.
Neil, a mechanical engineer, revealed: “When we knew she was a girl I wanted to call her Molly. Tess looked its meaning up on the internet and it means ‘miracle’.”
Tess and Neil had been desperate to start a family as soon as they married in Jamaica in 2003 — but years of frustration followed.
Tess said: “I was supposed to come back from Jamaica pregnant. That was the plan. I knew Neil would be a great dad.
“But I couldn’t conceive and the following years were very difficult for us. Our marriage suffered.”
The couple spent £15,000 on two unsuccessful bouts of gruelling IVF treatment.
They then tried for a third time in 2008 at a specialist clinic in London but tests revealed Tess’s window of opportunity had passed.
She said: “Every month I’d go to London to see if I could have IVF and every time I was told no. That was the hardest time for us.”
The couple also paid £900 for an IVF “wonderdrug” while blood tests were sent to a clinic in Chicago.
But they were eventually forced to concede defeat. Tess said: “I had counselling, I was devastated and heartbroken. My husband has been a rock. He said it would be tough if we couldn’t have kids but if we do it’s a bonus. But all I ever wanted was to be a mum.”
Tess went through the menopause in 2010, and followed her counsellor’s advice by planting a bush in her garden and buying a dog.
The couple also decided to foster a boy and two girls on short-term placements in a bid to fill the void.
Tess then started hormone replacement therapy in November 2015 to help ease her hot flushes — and experts believe this may have kick-started the ovulation process.
However the odds on Tess conceiving naturally for the first time at 46, six years after going through the menopause, are still thought to be “infinitesimally small”.
Tess said: “I was stunned because I had been through the menopause and didn’t think it was possible. I feel I’ve been blessed.”
Molly is now eight months old and has already been on several trips this summer in the family’s VW camper van — along with their black Labrador Lottie, eight.
Tess, a former nursery school receptionist, said: “I still can’t believe it. Every night when Molly wakes up in the night I come downstairs for her bottle and I see myself in the mirror and I can’t believe that it’s me.
“I sit down and think, ‘Oh my God, we are parents.’
“My family and friends have all been in tears because they know all the heartache we’ve been through.
“I don’t want to give other families false hope as I know what other would-be-mums and dads are going through.
“I just want to share our wonderful story with the world. I can’t stop smiling and I can’t stop telling people, even strangers. The Post Office and local takeaway know and ask how ‘Miracle Molly’ is.”
Hits 1 in 100 at 40
THE NHS says the menopause starts when a woman stops having periods and is no longer able to get pregnant naturally.
But women can, in rare circumstances, become pregnant if their menstrual cycles resume. The menopause is caused by a change in the body’s sex hormones. The average age for a woman in the UK to reach it is 51 but around one in 100 experience it before 40.
Common symptoms include hot flushes and night sweats. In severe cases, GPs can offer HRT which helps replace oestrogen.
Experts stunned by Molly
EXPERTS believe Tess Morten’s pregnancy was sparked by HRT — but are stunned it happened so long after her menopause.
Prof Geeta Nargund, of the Create Fertility clinic, said: “Once a woman has reached 12 months without a period, it is very rare to get pregnant with their natural release of eggs.
“But there are very rare cases of ‘spontaneous ovulation’ reported in women on HRT who have undergone early menopause.”
Adam Balen, chair of the British Fertility Society, said Tess’s remarkable seven-year gap had “infinitesimally small odds”.
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He said: “When a woman goes through the menopause, we know there are still a few eggs left in the ovaries, so the occasional burst of activity could happen.
“But I have not heard of it happening seven years later. It’s amazing.”
Dr Gill Lockwood, executive director IVI-Midland fertility clinic, said: “The best explanation is that HRT ‘tricks’ the ovary into releasing its last egg.
“Although a baby girl is born with every egg she will ever have, and most of the store is ‘used up’ by the age of 51, for some women, starting on HRT may trigger a final ovulation.
“I always tell my patients that, if a late baby would not be welcome, they must use barrier contraception.
“Usually HRT is recommended to help with acute symptoms in the years leading up to the menopause, such as hot flushes.
“It is not ‘an elixir of youth’ so it would be unusual to start it as long after a natural menopause as Tess has."
