A woman who went through menopause when she was just eleven years old, has finally taken in at the age of 30.
Amanda Lewis
A woman who feared she would never carry
a child after going through the menopause aged 11 has revealed she is three months
pregnant.
Amanda Lewis, now 30, is expecting her
first child after having IVF treatment using a donor egg and her partner's
sperm.
The dance teacher, who lives in
Nuneaton, revealed her happy news during an appearance on ITV daytime show
Lorraine on Wednesday, having previously appeared on the show back in 2009 to
talk about her early menopause.
'I knew I wanted to try the
treatment [IVF] but the odds of it not working were very high,' Amanda
told Lorraine Kelly.
'I was very lucky that it
worked first time.' Most women start the menopause between the
ages of 45 and 55, but in rare cases it can occur prematurely without an
explanation.
Amanda explained how, when she met
her other half, Tom, she told him 'straight away by text' about her condition.
'He was fine about it - the way
I was building it up he thought it was something a lot more serious,' she
told Lorraine.
Amanda said that he was
understanding when she told him they might never be able to conceive a child
naturally, adding: 'He said "we can look into it when the time
comes", and [told me] not to worry".'
When the couple decided they were
ready to have children, they looked into the possibility of IVF treatment using
a donor egg and Tom's sperm.
'It was on the first attempt -
we're very lucky,' Amanda
said.
Amanda said of her first
trimester: 'I'm a little bit tired, but everything is okay.
'I knew I wanted to try the
treatment but the odds of it not working were very high. I was very lucky that
it worked first time.'
To prepare to carry her child,
Amanda had to take hormones to increase the size of her uterus.
'It was only 2mm thick and it
should have been 8mm. But we got it there in a month. [The doctors] were quite
surprised.'
The mother-to-be, who will be
monitored closely throughout the duration of her pregnancy, and will continue
to take hormones, said that after giving birth she will go through the
experience of the menopause all over again.
Amanda was just 11 when her weight
spiralled and she began to experience extreme mood swings - something that was
put down to the onset of puberty at the time.
'It was very difficult,' she
told Lorraine.
'The biggest thing was the weight
gain and my mood swings. I went from a size 8 to 18 in a matter of months and
then I just started getting down.'
It was six months before doctors -
alerted by erratic hormone levels evident in Amanda's blood tests - realised
she was going through premature menopause - decades before most women start
experiencing symptoms.
'I went on a mixture of HRT and
the pill, they chopped and changed me because I had side effects on one then
the other, and that has been on and off since basically,' Amanda said of her
years on medication.
After giving birth Amanda will go back
on HRT to manage her menopausal symptoms, and will be tested to check the
impact pregnancy has had on her bone density.
Despite her condition, Amanda is
hoping to continue growing her family: 'We have three top-grade embryos in the
freezer, so they're all ready to go if we want any more.'
She joked: 'Maybe not
three more but we'll see!'
Lorraine added: 'That is
incredible what science can do, in the relatively short time since you were
diagnosed. You must feel so happy and so blessed despite everything you have
gone through?'
'Yes I do,' Amanda
said.
'It was quite hard to believe
it was real until about a month ago but I've just got to try and enjoy it now
and not feel stressed about it.'
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
