A woman has told how she feared she might never become a mother, but gave birth to a boy at age 45 after taking Viagra to get pregnant.
Carin Rockind, 48, welcomed a “miracle” baby after trying for a child for five years after marrying her husband, Josh Klur, 52, an artist.
The couple were devastated after Carin miscarried twice and was on the verge of giving up on their dreams of starting a family.
In a last ditch effort, the couple decided to try expensive IVF – with one round costing them $40,000 (£32,000) – but there was only one embryo left – fertilized with his own sperm – to implant.
Carin decided to try using Viagra, which is usually used to treat erectile problems, after seeing a Youtube video in which a woman claimed to be using it to grow the lining of her uterus.
She claims that after taking Viagra and inserting it into her vagina she found out she was pregnant in April 2015.
At her 17-week scan, the doctor told Carin that she had vasa previa, which is a serious condition that can result in stillbirth. She was also informed that she would have to give birth via caesarean section.
On July 2, 2022, Carin gave birth to her baby boy, Shay Rockind-Klur, weighing 7lbs 15oz at Lankenau Medical Center, in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, USA.
Speaking about her pregnancy journey, Philadelphia-based women’s empowerment coach Carin said, “When I was told I was pregnant after a year-long fertility journey, we were overjoyed.
“I really wanted to be pregnant, I believed my body could handle it.
“I found a woman in Australia who slipped Viagra into her vagina and it helped the lining of her uterus grow.
“I went to my doctor and asked for Viagra but he said he had never seen it work. I asked again and within three days my lining had grown and we were good to go – my miracle baby it is a Viagra product.
“It felt like all our hard work had paid off.
“Many women who have miscarriages spend the entire nine months terrified. We agreed that we were going to spend the entire nine months grateful and believing that this was meant to be.”
She added, “Shay is super healthy and happy. He’s going to be three on July 2nd.
“He’s a miracle baby. All things had to go right for this baby to be born.
“This baby wanted to be born. When you think about all the things that had to line up and all the things that went wrong, we’re super lucky.”
After getting married in August 2014, Carin and Josh became pregnant in April 2015. But, at the eight-week checkup, Carin received the devastating news that she had miscarried.
After a year of trying to get pregnant again, the couple visited a fertility doctor in 2017 and were told Carin was “too old” to give birth.
Just two days before her 43rd birthday, Carin found out she was pregnant again but later miscarried, saying, “At that point, I didn’t want to live anymore.
“On Mother’s Day 2018, my husband took me out to eat and we decided to try again.
“It was a longing for me. I was constantly seeing pregnant people everywhere I went, and I just had this longing and jealousy — my heart kept aching.”
The couple decided they would try IVF and received 20 eggs from a 26-year-old stranger, whose eggs had previously produced eight children.
Out of 20 eggs, they only got one embryo after being told they should get three to five.
Carin said: “There was a 65% chance it would work, and I went to my doctor to see why I was miscarrying.
“I figured if I had a chance, we’d better make sure it’s a good dose and it turns out I have a rare autoimmune disease linked to miscarriages.”
In 2019, as the couple was preparing for an embryo transfer, it became clear that the lining of Carin’s uterus wasn’t growing — which provides nourishment and sustenance for an embryo — and she was placed on medication.
Carin says the drug didn’t work and it was only after seeing a video of a woman using Viagra to grow the lining of her uterus that she decided to try it herself.
After asking her skeptical doctor for Viagra, the lining of Carin’s uterus grew in three days and the couple were ready to begin the process.
She claims that it worked, resulting in her lining growing so that they were able to do the transfer in November 2019. Then, Carin found out she was pregnant on November 11, 2019.
She said: “We felt a sense of relief and just screamed.
“We put all our work aside and went for a coffee, it felt like all our hard work, our money, our everything.
“We didn’t let the fear in. We were just going to spend the whole nine months grateful and believing that this is meant to be.”
Carin was delighted to welcome little Shay.
The baby was not breathing on his own and was taken to the NICU where doctors discovered he had lost half of his blood during delivery – due to vas previa – and received a blood transfusion, with Carin adding: “He was in the NICU for six days and now we say ‘thank God’.
“He’s happy and healthy, he was a miracle child.
“We’re super blessed, he’s hilarious, he’s been speaking whole paragraphs since he was two.
“He’s very imaginative, he’s very funny and he can be very mischievous.”
Dr Valentine Akande MBBS PhD MRCOG, Medical Director, at the Bristol Center for Reproductive Medicine, said: “Viagra is a drug that people use for erectile dysfunction and what it does can increase blood flow.
“A woman with a thin lining of the uterus, Viagra has the potential to increase blood flow to the lining of the uterus.
“When it does, the lining of the uterus has been reported to thicken, and we’ve used that before.
“There is some evidence that it may increase the lining of the uterus, however, studies have not shown that it translates into higher pregnancy success rates.
“When you have a patient where you try everything and nothing works, then we would try Viagra.
“But we don’t use it in fertility treatment, we only use it in very rare circumstances.
“We would only use it for the thin lining of the uterus. We don’t recommend it as a fertility treatment, and it’s not licensed for use in fertility treatment.”
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