PA
Kate Silverton has told of her delight at falling pregnant naturally after failed IVF attempts. The mum-to-be who is 40, says she initially feared her pregnancy symptoms were the start of the MENOPAUSE.
'I'd had some symptoms that I now recognise as early pregnancy signs – a craving for bacon sandwiches, a swollen tummy and two rather short "cycles",' she told the Daily Mail, 'But I assumed it was the onset of an early menopause.'
In fact, Kate was so convinced she was menopausal that she went to see her GP to discuss having hormone replacement therapy!
Kate had been told her chances of pregnancy were between just three and five per cent, due to her age and the fact she had an ovary removed in her twenties.
'I'd been told I was out of time,' she says, revealing she was 'heartbroken' at the thought of not being a mum or giving her husband Mike Heron a child of his own.
She says even after getting a positive pregnancy test result, her doctor warned it could still be bad news, saying her medical history and age could indicate a 'false positive' result.
'Very rarely there are tumours that grow and produce the pregnancy hormone hCG, inducing some of the early side-effects of pregnancy but masking a much more sinister outcome – that of ovarian cancer,' Kate explains.
An early scan thankfully revealed her test result was correct and she was pregnant. But the traumas did not end there, as just weeks later Kate was rushed to hospital with heavy bleeding. Doctors told her it was probably a miscarriage, and to go home and ride it out. Amazingly, a scan with her own doctors days later showed she was still pregnant. Kate says she couldn't believe it and 'still doesn't'.
'I've not yet been able to relax and enjoy myself 100 per cent. As any mother-to-be will know it is an incredibly vulnerable and precarious time.'
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