A 48 year old mother and her husband, Melanie and Ruud van der Wal from Hoedspruit wrote:
Nine months ago an incredible journey began in our lives, we received the news that I was expecting a baby.
It came as a big surprise to us, and with it came many warnings of complications due to my age.
I immediately did some research and I must admit that the odds seemed stacked against us.
Living & Loving (Aug 1999) Pregnancy at 20,30,40, the percentage of women who have babies in this age group is 0.03.
More than half of all pregnancies in women over 45 end in miscarriage (before 20 weeks of gestation).
Risk of stillbirth is doubled for women in their 40’s.”
With the statistics clearly explained to us, we took each day as a victory.
It is through the love and support from friends, family, and colleagues that we kept our heads held up high and our hearts filled with expectation.
As a family, we would like to thank all the people in our lovely community who would contact me and encourage me, either with a prayer or a message of hope.
We named our precious little girl, Emma, which means “Absolute Faith”, and that is how we approached each day – with Faith.
Thank you to our Heavenly Father for giving us this perfect little gift and taking care of both of us.
She was born on December 7 at 8:12, weighing in at 2.960kg, a perfect little miracle.
She is now part of the Hoedspruit community and joins her sisters Kirsten, Megan, Abigail and Le-Toyah in making our family complete.
We would also like to thank Dr Haber, Dr duToit, and Dr van Rensburg from Tzaneen who were part of helping me get through this journey.
Dr Haber walked the full 9 months with me, and we are forever grateful for all his guidance and care.
A big thank you to the staff of the Tzaneen MediClinic.
