London - She’s 62, an age when many women are helping to look after their grandchildren.
But Dr Lina Alvarez is eight months pregnant with her third child.
She already has a son aged 27 and another boy aged ten, born when she was 52.
This time she will have a daughter, said to be developing well at (1.9kg) and already named Lina.
The infant is the result of fertility treatment – undertaken 20 years after Dr Alvarez started the menopause.
The doctor, who lives in Lugo, north-west Spain, says she is delighted with the pregnancy and feeling half her age.
She also claims the pregnancy is her reward for years of heartbreak. Her oldest child was left disabled after a gynaecologist damaged her developing son’s head in a routine test.
She is his primary carer and his condition led to the breakdown of her marriage.
Dr Alvarez told local media: “I feel like a woman in her 30s. To feel better than this is impossible. I am very happy because I am living now my reward for so much suffering. It is a miracle.
“It was a life of tears. For years I cried every day because I could not face my son’s disease. He had to be in hospital twice a week.”
But despite her pregnancy sparking a heated debate in Spain, the mother to be shrugs off criticism. She added: “I always wanted to be a mother again, but most medical experts said no. However, some years ago I met a gynaecologist who agreed to help me if the tests were OK and they were positive so he planted an embryo.
“They said there was only a six percent chance of success, but I got pregnant with a baby girl. Everything is going perfectly. I feel like I’m having a second chance and the pregnancy has made me feel younger and stronger.
“When she will be 30, I will be 90. I will be a grandmother as well as a mother and so what, the fact is that my daughter will have been brought up.” Expectant mothers in their sixties face riskier pregnancies and a higher danger of miscarriage, diabetes and pre-eclampsia.
The world’s oldest documented mother is Daljinder Kaur from India, who gave birth last year at the age of 70, after two years of IVF treatment.
Daily Mail