Cathy and her husband tried to get pregnant for 12 years—fertility drugs, temperature guides and just about everything under the sun, except in vitro, which they couldn’t afford. “My struggles were huge. I wanted in vitro more than anything,” she said. “I stayed in a state of depression for several years. The pain I went through every time I saw a baby was unreal. It was truly a miracle that it happened at all.”

True to the old wives’ tale (at least for Cathy), “once you stop trying, it will happen,” and Cathy got pregnant at age 40. By now her girlfriends had children who were in high school. Cathy desperately wanted to catch up. Sadly, she lost the baby after 14 weeks. Despite the disappointment and huge loss, her determination didn’t falter. “I knew I had done it once, and I was going to try again,” Cathy said.

In the fall of 1992, she got what she described as her second chance.  At age 41, she became pregnant again. Cathy had just become a patient of Dr. Karin Buettner and was excited about having a baby shower and being one of the girls – at last. She hadn’t anticipated the risk inherent to her history and advanced maternal age.

“Dr. Buettner was diligent about my blood pressure, which was high,” Cathy recalled. “She had my urine checked for protein. She did everything right and I was trying to as well. But I thought she was overreacting a bit.”

Though Cathy had gotten a second chance, she was experiencing denial about her high-risk condition. “I thought, now I can catch up to my friends. It didn’t occur to me that I was 41, with a history of infertility and miscarriage.  I was still working and carrying on like I was 20 years old.”

Dr. Buettner advised Cathy to slow down, keep her feet up and watch her food intake. Cathy explained, “I was already heavy, and only gained about nine pounds during the pregnancy. However when I developed toxemia, I ballooned up. That frightened Dr. Buettner.”

Cathy’s due date was June 19, and Dr. Buettner ordered bed rest at the end of April, because Cathy’s blood pressure was continuing to escalate. Then, she admitted Cathy to the hospital.

“It was there she sat down next to me, and the message began to sink in,” Cathy said. “She said to me, with that sweet accent of hers: ‘Cathy, you’re putting your baby at risk. She could die.’ That’s when I finally realized that I needed to become a participant in this pregnancy and not just an observer. This baby was something that had been given to me as a gift. I needed to wake up and get on board. I needed to help Dr. Buettner help me and my daughter.”

Cathy was also grateful for Dr. Buettner’s consideration of her husband. She said, “I was not in any condition to be anything but confined to bed, but Dr. Buettner kept my husband apprised of all that was going on. I think he thought he was losing his wife and child at the same time. He was a wreck on the inside.”

About two weeks later, on May 3, a healthy baby Claire came into the world. Cathy and her husband went on to raise a healthy, happy girl.

She reflects, “Dr. Buettner has helped me through so many phases of my life and problems. In my eyes, she is one of the most intelligent, most beautiful and most skilled physicians there has ever been. She is a star in my book and always will be.”

As for Claire, Cathy said Dr. Buettner has advised that she see begin seeing Claire at age 21 or two years after she becomes sexually active. “I’m proactive about her health,” Cathy says of Claire. “I may have been an ‘old’ mom, but I was a young woman of the 70s – I know what goes on.”