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05/23/2007
It all looks so good, it's hard to know where to start
If you can't find something in this story to be cranky about, even if only the hot-button misuse of "implanted," I will be forced to conclude you're simply not trying:
Mom, you're too old to have twins!
Giving birth at 60 sets U.S. record, but newborns' sis, 29, thinks it's a bad ideaFrieda Birnbaum's new bouncing baby boys may be bundles of joy for the 60-year-old mom who gave birth yesterday, but they've got her grownup children hopping mad.
The New Jersey mom earned a place in the record books and the debate over fertility treatment by becoming the oldest American woman to give birth to twins. [...]
New dad Ken, 63, a grandfatherly type with receding white hair, was thrilled. "He sort of pushed me in this direction," said his wife.
But her two grown kids — Jason, 33, and Alana, 29 — are appalled.
"My mother is too old, for health reasons and for lifestyle," Alana said last night. "I don't think she's thinking about the future — being 80 or 90 and having a kid." She said her brother is worried they will end up taking care of the babies. "He's against it even more than I am," she said. [...]
Married for 38 years, the Birnbaums had their first two kids when they were relatively young.
But when Frieda was in her mid-50s, she decided she wanted another baby and underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive her son Ari, who is now almost 7. It was Ari's arrival that convinced Birnbaum that she should have at least one more child. [...]
They considered adopting, but had heard too many horror stories. [...]
Over the next few years, they went through two IVF cycles — in which eggs are fertilized with sperm in a petri dish and implanted in the womb — at a U.S. clinic.
The new mom played coy on whether she used her own eggs, which had been frozen years before, or eggs from a donor. [...]
At any rate, the first two procedures failed.
"Now her age was getting to the point where [the American clinics] didn't accept her any longer," her husband said.
So the couple decided to go to a clinic in South Africa that specialized in treating older women. This time, Birnbaum beat the odds and got pregnant.
The pregnancy was high-risk by any definition. Older mothers are more likely to have complications, and Birnbaum was the oldest ever treated at Hackensack.
But the gestation and birth went smoothly, and Birnbaum said her obstetrician, Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan, thinks she's an inspiration for other soon-to-be seniors.