First-time Mother at 50 Shares Her Struggles With Infertility and Failed Rounds of IVF

IVF fertility in vitro fertilization Sandi Savage First Time Mom at 50 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

By Joel Brussels , Parent Herald Jul 08, 08:32 am

Photo: (Photo : CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)

Sandi Savage, the author of the soon-to-be-released memoir Savage Path, stayed strong and believed she would one day become a mother despite enduring numerous disappointments in her quest to have a baby.

Little did Savage know that she would become the proud mom of a beautiful baby girl at 50. Sandi and her husband Tim welcomed their daughter Josephine Jane last August and have since had their happily ever after. The Lexington, Kentucky, couple named their child after Sandi's mother and Tim's grandfather.

Make no mistake about it, though, the road to this happy moment for the pair was long and arduous. Sandi told Newsweek that she and her husband got married late in life. She had her 40th birthday on their honeymoon, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer the following year.

Breast cancer forced the couple to delay baby plans

Sandi said they began talking to the doctors about their fertility because they wanted to have kids and knew that they had to put it on hold to go through chemotherapy and surgeries and that kind of deal.

According to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 264,000 breast cancer cases are diagnosed in women and about 2,400 in men annually in the United States. Of those affected, about 42,000 women and 500 men die each year from breast cancer in the U.S., according to a study.

Sandi spent the following year in and out of hospitals to treat her cancer. Apart from having a lumpectomy and a double mastectomy, she also underwent some chemo rounds. When Sandi healed from that, the doctors cleared them to be able to start trying to have children. However, there was a problem when they began trying as she was not getting pregnant.

Sandi and Tim spoke to numerous fertility doctors, and the couple started the retrieval process to create an embryo and go through in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, after multiple rounds, it still was not happening for them. A miracle occurred out of the blue, as they received the biggest blessing after several years of trying.

Sandi's sister-in-law offered to be a surrogate for couple

Sandi said her 36-year-old sister-in-law Alyssa, who already has two children with her husband, approached them one day saying she felt ready to carry a child. She volunteered to carry her niece or nephew for them.

The couple warned her that this would not be an easy journey as she would have to take loads of medicines and face long travels since their fertility doctor was out of state. That did not deter Alyssa, who was determined to bring her niece into this world.

The three of them soon began the difficult process. The couple transferred their embryo to the sister-in-law to safely carry for the next nine months. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), fertility usually declines with age in both women and men, but the effects of age are much greater in the former.