50-year-old North Carolina woman gives birth to first child after years of trying

Age is truly just a number, and Susie Troxler’s story is a testament to that as the 50-year-old North Carolina woman recently gave birth to her first child after years of infertility. The psychologist and her 61-year-old husband, Tony, became parents for the first time after they welcomed their daughter Lily Antonia Troxler on September 29.

“We’re doing great,” Troxler told FOX on Tuesday. “Like I would tell people… sleep-deprived but totally worth it.”

The couple married in 2008, but they faced challenges getting pregnant despite trying on multiple occasions down the years. “When we got married, we just assumed we’d get pregnant, and then it didn’t happen,” she told ABC News. “But we’re both very old-school, and when we grew up, nobody even talked about or discussed IVF [in-vitro fertilization]. It wasn’t even a thing.”

Troxler said it was later established that one of the reasons she couldn’t get pregnant was because she had uterine fibroids. She subsequently underwent fibroid surgery in January 2019.

And with age not being on her side, Troxler said a fertility specialist informed her it was going to be an uphill battle to carry a pregnancy to term. The couple subsequently decided to try in-vitro fertilization, but that, unfortunately, did not work out. They then decided to try egg donation, per FOX.

Troxler said they were left with two viable embryos following an egg donation process. But the first embryo transfer was unsuccessful. The couple’s attempt at getting pregnant also hit a snag when the COVID-19 pandemic hit as many fertility clinics halted some of their operations for a while. However, Troxler said the second embryo transfer she eventually underwent early this year was a success.

“So Feb. 1, we had our embryo transfer of the last and final embryo, and here she [Lily] is,” she said. “That was the journey.”

Troxler also said she did not suffer any complications during her pregnancy – even though it was high risk because of her age. “When I say a really blessed pregnancy, it really was,” she told FOX.

“I knew I was going to be a mom one day,” she added. “Didn’t know how it was going to happen. Didn’t know whether it was going to be natural means, IVF means, whether it was going to be adoption. We had no idea what it was going to be.”

“But we knew we were going to be parents one day,” Troxler continued. “It was just a given.”

Troxler gave birth to Lily via a planned C-section, ABC News reported. “It was a beautiful and exciting and peaceful moment,” the doctor who led the procedure, Dr. Carolyn Harraway-Smith, said. “Everyone in the room was excited and she came out healthy and happy and was just a beautiful baby.”