As you know, John Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston is pregnant at age 47, but CNN says “that’s nothing.”  Two doctors in New York helped women in their mid-fifties get pregnant last year. And in 2008, an Indian woman named Rajo Devi (pictured), aged 70, gave birth for the first time.

Dr. David Kreiner and Dr. Jamie Grifo say “these days, it’s not that difficult to get pregnant in your late 40s or early 50s — as long as you have two things: someone else’s eggs and at least $16,000.”

Kreiner, of East Coast Fertility in Plainview, New York, says women could get pregnant with donor eggs at up to 80 years old.  “Theoretically, there’s no age limit. But it hasn’t been tested.”

The chances of getting pregnant naturally over age 45 are “slim to none,” doctors say.  The chances of “conceiving naturally at that age are less than 5 percent each month, and the miscarriage rate in the first trimester is 70 to 80 percent.”  Even using IVF treatment with a woman’s own eggs at that age will likely not lead to pregnancy.  Kreiner says, “Forty-three is pretty much my cutoff for IVF with a woman’s own eggs. Occasionally, I’ll do it at 44, but the success rate is under 5 percent. When I explain this to women, they don’t even want to try.”  When women over 45 use donor eggs with IVF, however, their success rate for conception hovers around 75 percent. Continue reading »

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There’s been a lot of talk in the last week about the notion of the “replacement child,” in response to John Travolta and Kelly Preston announcing they’re expecting just a year after their son Jett’s tragic death.  ABC News acknowledges that the phrase “replacement child” is “a cruel term,” and CNN takes a more tactful approach, titling their piece, Conceiving after loss: ‘You can never replace a child’.  And yet both articles seem to insinuate that Travolta and Preston may be having a replacement child.  The Daily Mail, in a headline that can only be described as inflammatory, even goes so far as to claim that the couple believe their unborn child might be a reincarnation of Jett.

Psychiatry professor Katherine Shear of Columbia University says, “When a child dies, many parents have a “natural urge” to have another.”  That makes sense.  Babies, in addition to being wonderfully lovable little creatures, represent hope.  Therese Rando, author of the book How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies, says, “In Western culture, all feelings of hope and meaning and expectations are projected on to the child.”  But that doesn’t automatically imply that people who’ve lost a child have subsequent children as an act of selfish comfort. Continue reading »

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Many former Scientologists suspect the fallout over his son’s death may draw John Travolta from out of the Religion’s fold (all apologies to those who do not believe Scientology earns the moniker “religion”). This belief is based on whether or not Travolta will ultimately blame his faith for the death of his son. Travolta’s son, Jet, suffered from autism and his demise was pinned on a seizure disorder. Scientology does not recognize autism as a medical condition and therefore denounces the use of medication (or medication for any psychological disorder: see Tom Cruise’s castigation of Brooke Shields for medicating her post partum depression). Continue reading »

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