Countess Sophie is expecting her second child at 42

Sophie, the Countess of Wessex was said to be “completely over the moon” yesterday as Buckingham Palace announced she is expecting her second child.Sophie, 42, and her husband Prince Edward had made no secret of their longing for another baby after the birth of their daughter Louise three years ago.

But friends said that after undergoing unsuccessful fertility treatment, the couple had all but given up hope.

Yesterday, the countess, who was carrying out an official engagement in the rain at the Royal Agricultural Show in Warwickshire, was said to be “smiling ear to ear” as the news of her pregnancy was made public.

There was certainly no sign of her putting her feet up despite the difficulties she has experienced in previous pregnancies.

The countess lost her first baby and almost died in 2001 when she suffered an ectopic pregnancy – where the fetus grows outside the womb – and had to be airlifted to hospital.

She spoke afterwards of her great sadness and said she would consider undergoing IVF treatment to conceive.

Two years later, Lady Louise was born prematurely, weighing just 4lb 9oz, after the countess was taken to hospital suffering from agonising stomach pains.

The baby was delivered by emergency Caesarean section and taken to a neo-natal unit at another hospital.

Sophie, who was dangerously ill, was separated from her daughter for six days. Lady Louise was allowed home two weeks later when she reached the crucial weight of 5lb.

The traumas associated with the birth have made Lady Louise all the more precious to her parents – andgrandmother, the Queen.

“She is adored by everyone and is the apple of the Queen’s eye,” a friend of the couple said.

“Sophie and Edward felt they were lucky to have a beautiful child already. Having another baby was in the lap of the gods.”

The Queen and Prince Philip – for whom the new baby will be their eighth grandchild – and Sophie”s widowed father, Christopher Rhys-Jones, were the first to hear the news last weekend.

All are said to be “thrilled and delighted”.

Sophie and Edward, 43, who married at St George’s Chapel in Windsor in 1999, waited until the countess was 12 weeks pregnant to tell their families because “they wanted to be cautious and fine first”, a spokesman said.

The countess’s age means that the risk of complications have increased.

Older mothers are much more likely to miscarry, with some studies putting therisk at one in three pregnancies, and the chance of giving birth prematurely also rises.

But Sophie, who ran a PR company before her marriage, is determined to carry on with her royal duties.

Her spokesman said: “She is not putting up her feet. She is going to carry on official engagements as long as she can. She is feeling absolutely great and is completely over the moon about the baby.

“She loves children and has made no secret of the fact that she wanted more.”

She added: “I don’t know about morning sickness, she looks absolutely fantastic and is smiling from ear to ear.”

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Maggie and Ramona

Maggie Gyllenhaal was seen out enjoying the nice weather in NYC this week with Ramona, 9 months.

Ramona is being carried comfortably in her Baby Bjorn Sport Carrier. You can definitely tell who her daddy is…she looks just like Peter Sarsgaard.

PHOTOCREDIT: Bauergriffin via JUSTJARED

Kids Kitchen Set

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Israeli Doctors Freeze Eggs of 5-Year-Old Girls

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Doctors have managed to extract eggs from 5 -year-old girls and freeze them for use when they are old enough to have children.

The scientific advance, which was thought to be impossible, will enable girls suffering childhood cancers such as leukemia to become parents later in life. Thousands are left infertile each year after undergoing chemotherapy.

It also opens the possibility of storing girls’ eggs to protect them against any form of infertility in later life.

Previously it was believed the eggs of prepubescent girls were too immature to be extracted. It was thought they became viable only at puberty by reacting to hormonal changes in the body.

Israeli doctors have, however, managed to extract the eggs and then culture them in test-tubes to make them viable. The resulting eggs are no different to those of a 20-year-old girl, say the doctors.

I don’t thing that this is a good thing. A young girl should not have to undergo such an intense surgery at 5.

Aside from the fact that the procedure is painful, these young children have to take a drug to stimulate egg production that has MANY side effects.

It is hard to say whether the negatives outweigh the positive. This would be a decision that only a parent could make.

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First Baby Born From Egg Matured In Lab and Frozen

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The first test-tube baby created from an egg matured in the laboratory and then frozen has been born in Canada, in a breakthrough offering hope to women with cancer and others unsuited to normal IVF treatment.

The baby is doing well and another three women are pregnant by the same method, researchers told a medical meeting in Lyon, France, on Monday.

Conventional in vitro fertilization (IVF) involves using high doses of expensive hormone drugs to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple mature eggs.

But some women seeking to preserve their child-bearing capacity may not have enough time to undergo ovarian stimulation or may have a condition that makes it dangerous, such as hormone-sensitive breast cancer.

For these patients, ripening eggs in the lab — so-called in vitro maturation (IVM) — makes sense. Until now, however, scientists have never frozen, thawed and then fertilized a lab-matured egg. This multi-step process increases significantly the flexibility of fertility treatment.

“We have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to do this and, so far, we have achieved four successful pregnancies, one of which has resulted in a live birth,” Hananel Holzer of the McGill Reproductive Center in Montreal said in a statement.

The research is still at an early stage and has not yet been proven in cancer patients, he told the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE).

But Holzer and other experts believe it has the potential to become one of the main options for fertility preservation.

This is good news for parents who want a baby, but not 5 or 6.

Some celebrities have spoken out about having ‘eggs’ frozen for future options. Sherri Sheppard, who frequently co-hosts ‘The View’ recently said that she eggs frozen for future a pregnancy.

Hopefully this will offer a more concrete answer for couples who cannot conceive naturally.

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