Now she is already 70, and the twins will soon be five years old.
Annegret Raunek has dedicated her entire life to children. And not only her own, but also strangers – she worked as a teacher of English and Russian languages. True, she worked in her free time from maternity leave. Annegret gave birth 14 times – from five different husbands and an anonymous sperm donor. In total, Annegret has 17 children. But everyone’s attention was attracted by her last childbirth – the woman decided to give birth again when she was 65 years old.
Even for enlightened Europe – Annegret lived in Berlin – this idea was already too much. Not only is she not young, but also a single mother! But Annegret was not afraid of anything. As she explained, she wanted to give birth to a younger brother or sister for her youngest daughter. The girl, by the way, was born when the woman was already 55 years old.
If at 55 everything went without external intervention, then this time artificial insemination was needed. In Germany, they refused to do it: it is too risky a procedure for both the mother and potential babies. Annegret went to Ukraine, where she underwent the procedure; IVF was cheaper there than in Europe.
Throughout her pregnancy, Annegret Raunek had to explain why she took such a step, and make excuses: journalists and the public accused her of selfishness. After all, if you give birth at that age, there is a great risk of not living even until the children graduate from school.
“You never know what and when can happen to you. Misfortune can happen to a mother at the age of 20. It is always a personal matter for everyone, when to get pregnant, ”the woman answered calmly.
And when asked how she was going to cope with the kids alone (Anegret’s last marriage ended in 2008), the German woman said that she had a lot of experience in raising children.
The twins were born at 26 weeks by cesarean section and weighed between 655 and 980 grams. The kids spent several weeks in the hospital, and then they were discharged home with their mother.
A few years later, journalists again visited the mother of many children. What they saw was not a surprise to them, but there was nothing to rejoice at either: the 70-year-old woman was clearly not able to cope with the shambling kids. According to the RTL edition, children do not go to the playground, do not play with their peers: for the mother it is too tiring. In addition, the kids have health problems: one of the girls needs an ophthalmologist, and one of the boys suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and he needs rehabilitation so that he can at least walk on his own. But the family does not go to the doctor: you cannot take everyone with you at once, and Annegret does not have a nanny.
However, the woman does not feel any guilt behind herself. She assures that she can cope on her own, and the children support her young and full of strength. But the older children practically do not help her, with the exception of a 15-year-old girl, for whom Annegret gave birth to the younger ones. The elders live separately, some of them, according to journalists, are offended by their mother. And Annegret does not even see her grandchildren, she is familiar with only one of them, and even then from the photo.
By the way, Annegret Raunek is not the oldest woman in labor in the world. There are other record holders, which you can read about HERE.
Anna Drozdova, Natalia Evgenieva