Over 40s mum club OUR AMAZING JOURNEYS TO MOTHERHOOD

The Weekly meets three women who tell us having kids was worth the wait.

- Cloe Willetts

Beginning the journey to motherhood at the age of 41 came with a multitude of challenges for Carolyn McKenzie. Not only did she decide to welcome her son Harry as a single woman, but the determined mum-to-be endured multiple rounds of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in Australia, before using her younger sister’s eggs and a sperm donor.

“I always wanted a family of my own, and my mother laughed at me because I said that if I got to 40 and hadn’t met Mr Right, I was probably going to do it by myself,” says the Otago GP, 45, who celebrated her boy’s first birthday in July this year.

“Once I said aloud to my family that I was going to do IVF, my parents and two sisters were really supportive. I knew I’d made my decision, even if it was a really hard one.”

Because Carolyn was over 40, IVF wasn’t funded for her in New Zealand, so she travelled to Brisbane for the treatment.

“I paid privately in Australia because they tend to be more aggressive in their treatments and despite the cost of flights, accommodation and other expenses, it was still cheaper for me to do it over there because the medication costs are not as high as they are in New Zealand,” she explains.

“In Australia, they also have access to the US sperm banks, so there is no wait. The waiting list for a sperm donor in New Zealand is over two years and when you’re past 40, you don’t really have that time.”

Carolyn underwent two rounds of IVF in Brisbane to harvest her own eggs, which were then fertilised with donor sperm. But each time, she was left heartbroken when the resulting embryos failed genetic testing.