It's a Boy for a Mom of 62

REDDING — A 62-year-old woman gave birth Friday to a healthy 6-pound, 9-ounce baby boy, becoming one of the oldest women in the world to successfully bear a child.

The newborn is the 12th child of Janise Wulf, who's also a grandmother of 20 and great-grandmother of three.

Family members said the delivery at Mercy Medical Center went smoothly Friday, despite earlier concerns about the mother's health. Wulf, a diabetic, experienced swelling and higher blood pressure earlier this week, prompting doctors to perform the Caesarean section a week early.

"I believe our only hesitation collectively was her health and her coming through this. Giving birth is hard at any age, in any body, let alone with her being 62," Wulf's 28-year-old daughter, Desiree Myers, told the Redding Record Searchlight newspaper. Myers gave birth to a baby of her own four months ago.

Wulf and her third husband, Scott, 48, named the red-haired boy Adam Charles Wulf. He follows 3 1/2 years behind his older brother, Ian.

"I hate to raise one alone, without a sibling," said Wulf, who was impregnated both times through in vitro fertilization.

Both boys are the only children of Scott Wulf, who said he always wanted children but his previous wife was infertile.

"I never even dared to hope that it was possible," he said of his sons. Wulf has given birth to 12 children, although one son died in his 30s and another died at birth with undeveloped lungs. Of her 10 living children, the oldest is 40.

"I think she's amazing. She's got more than enough love to give," Myers said.

Although Wulf isn't the oldest on record, there are only a few women known to have given birth in their 60s.

The oldest woman on record as having given birth is a 66-year-old Romanian who had a Caesarean section Jan. 15, 2005. Adriana Iliescu was aided by artificial insemination, doctors said.

The Guinness Book of World Records also lists two 63-year-old women: Rosanna Della Corte of Italy in 1994 and Acheli Keh of California in 1996. News reports, however, list Della Corte's age at 62 when she gave birth.

The Record Searchlight independently verified Wulf's age.

Wulf is used to defying the odds. Blind since birth, she was a synchronized swimmer in high school, worked as a piano and organ saleswoman and developed a passion for cooking.

Wulf said Friday that she considers her late-in-life pregnancy a groundbreaking act for older women.

"Age is a number. You're as old as you feel," she said. "Every time you revolutionize something or you do something different, there's going to be naysayers."

Category: