"No, that's our mother."
Sheng Hailin, 71, often picks up her 11-year-old twins from school, and often hears passers-by ask, "So cute little sister, is this your granddaughter?" ”
In the face of such a problem, Sheng Hailin always seemed very embarrassed.
At this point, her two children would answer in unison to passers-by, who asked, "No, this is our mother." ”
This begs the question, why would an elderly woman in her 70s have two twin daughters of 11 years old?
This also started in 2009.
Elderly bereavement
Losing a child is one of the three saddest things in life. In China, many people will experience similar life experiences. However, there is a special existence in this family, that is, Sheng Hailin. Sheng Hailin is an unfortunate woman. Such a tragedy occurred in 2009, when Sheng Hailin, who was in her 50s, died.
Sheng Hailin, a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, has been working as a doctor for more than 30 years and served as the president of a local hospital before retiring. After retiring, she started her own entrepreneurial path again. The company she founded is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of health care products. Under her leadership, many people around her have joined the ranks. Her husband served in the military and worked at a military academy. The couple has been happily married for decades and has a daughter named Tingting.
When she gave birth to her daughter, Sheng Hailin was already in her 30s, and the couple gave her all their love.
From study to life to work, the couple spent a lot of effort to train her, Tingting lived up to expectations, under their care to grow into an excellent adult, in 2008, Ding Junhui and a trustworthy young man entered the marriage hall together.
After the happy life of her daughter and son-in-law gradually got on the right track, Sheng Hailin could not express the happiness in her heart. Her daughter and son-in-law work in a foreign company, and every day when they come home from work, she has to accompany them to a meal. Once, she suddenly discovered that her son had moved in with another woman. She was very surprised. She thought she could finally enjoy her old age, but the sudden change turned everything upside down.
During the Spring Festival in 2009, the atmosphere of celebration was very strong, and after four months of marriage, she and her husband returned home to visit their parents, and also brought some gifts, and the family got along very well. But just then, suddenly a man appeared among them, his name was Sheng Hailin, a young businessman. Sheng Hailin was the last to smile and prepare a gift for her daughter to go home, and she also smiled and saw her and her son-in-law go out, but she did not know that this was a farewell.
On the sixth day of the first lunar month, Sheng Hailin received a call from her daughter-in-law.
The other party told her about Tingting's accident, Sheng Hailin did not think much, hurriedly drove by with her husband, only to see her daughter learn that Tingting and her husband died of gas poisoning. In the face of her daughter's death, Sheng Hailin's heart was suddenly cold - she did not believe that there was such a woman in this world, and she did not want her daughter's death to be caused by herself! The in-laws were worried that telling the truth would have an emotional impact on Sheng Hailin, and waited until they were safe to say it.
After learning the truth, Sheng Hailin wept bitterly. "My daughter was a very good student in school, but because of her poor grades, teachers and classmates didn't like her, and some people even laughed at her," she said. Why is this the case for my daughter? All the toil and love they poured into their daughter was erased by an accident, and the pain that the white-haired man brought to the black-haired man almost caused the two men to have a nervous breakdown.
The whole house was gray, and in the first few months of losing her daughter, Sheng Hailin heard the voice of the last child calling for her mother. Her daughter is a lively little girl, but she also has many shortcomings: she does not want to talk to people and does not like to talk to her parents. Almost every day when she wakes up, she thinks of her daughter and dreams of her face and voice when she is asleep, which makes Sheng Hailin cry every day, sometimes out of breath, and she has to be sent to the hospital for oxygen rescue.
It wasn't easy for her husband, who spent his days surrounded by the pain of losing his only daughter, forcing himself to be distracted from caring for his heartbroken wife. However, her life did not become more difficult because of this. Sheng Hailin was originally a cheerful and helpful person. But since marrying her husband, she has fallen into a state of distress. For a long time, Sheng Hailin's husband could not sleep at night, so he sat alone in the living room and drank bitterly.
Sheng Hailin could not bear the grief and stayed at home every day, refusing to leave her home and refusing to associate with others. Once, my daughter visited her in the hospital with her, and when she saw her daughter on the sickbed, she actually cried and said, "Daddy, I'm not leaving!" The daughter's words caught the doctor's attention. Who is it? The friend who came to visit her could not bear to know that Sheng Hailin had nowhere else to pour her love for her daughter, and her heart and soul were in pain, so he advised her: "How about you adopt a child?" ”
Adopting children is relatively common for "orphaned families" like Sheng Hailin.
Sheng Hailin and her husband suddenly thought of this idea. Because in her opinion, there are many orphans in China at present. But most of these children don't live well. She and her husband both want to give these children more love and hope to find better solutions. To this end, the two called all welfare homes across the country, and even contacted the Wenchuan earthquake-stricken area, but coincidentally, the children they contacted were already in place and could not be adopted.
After many consultations, there was no result, and the doctor Ms. Sheng Hailin put forward the idea of IVF.
The oldest elderly mother in China
Sheng Hailin, who is about to retire, knows that many elderly women become pregnant and have children because of their work. She thought: I want to have a son too! However, now that my son is still young and has no job, how can I let him live a happy old age? Sheng Hailin was very anxious, but there was still no way. She thought more thoughtfully that she would soon retire and receive a handsome monthly pension like her husband, which would be enough to raise another child.
When she told him what she thought, she was met with opposition. She said: "I think children should have a complete home, so that children can get better care and education. The husband said that now he did not want to buy clothes for his children. The husband also wants another child, he will oppose the wife, mainly love her, after all, she is old, the probability of having children is definitely high.
But at his wife's insistence, he did not want to see Sheng Hailin's tearful husband, and finally agreed to go to psychological counseling with her.
Sheng Hailin used her past connections and connections as a doctor to contact some experts in the field, but after analyzing her situation, they thought she was too old, that pregnancy and childbirth were at great risk of accidents, and hoped that she would not take risks.
But Sheng Hailin has made up her mind that old-age production is risky, but risks are avoidable, which means that there is a chance of success. She said: "I'm an ordinary doctor and I know what I'm going to do. But if you want to succeed, you have to prepare yourself first. I am now at a very critical stage. The first is the state of the body. In her 60s, IVF is rare abroad, and if IVF fails, she is contributing to the advancement of medicine.
After repeated questioning, Sheng Hailin finally found a doctor, and the doctor promised to help her. The doctor told him that pregnancy was a dangerous thing and that preparations must be made before pregnancy could take place. But before waiting for the baby to be born, he decided to take the child to the hospital for examination. Because I am worried about what will happen to my child. Sheng Hailin was overjoyed, and quickly carried out the procedures for reproduction and began to adjust her body.
The first thing she wanted to do was to restore her body to its original physiological function through injections and medications, as well as food and nutrition. During this time, she insisted on getting up at 5 a.m. every morning, eating breakfast on time, and then going to the hospital for a comprehensive medical examination. After two examinations, the doctor found that there were many problems in Sheng Hailin's body, such as anemia and hypertension. After 3 months, Sheng Hailin's physical condition improved significantly. In October 2009, Shen successfully became pregnant.
Doctors who specialize in this discipline have repeatedly lamented that this is a miracle of creation.
However, a successful conception does not mean that everything is successful. Sheng Hailin's choice violated her own physiological laws to a certain extent and caused harm to her own body. In the first month of pregnancy, the doctor gave Sheng Hailin a special experiment - a glassware containing embryonic stem cells and human cells was placed in a culture medium containing a small amount of normal saline for culture. It turned out that the cells died. After the IVF, Ms. Sheng Hailin's blood pressure soared, and the pain that followed has been bothering her.
In addition to this, she also contained a large number of risk-suppressing drugs, the side effects of which made her feel nauseous, dizzy, and often had no appetite. In order to avoid this from happening, Sheng Hailin began to try various methods to treat, but the effect was not ideal. In Sheng Hailin's view, many drugs may have an impact on the fetus; and pregnancy is also a high incidence stage of various diseases. There are also some medications that cause lameness that won't go away even after giving birth.
As the fetus developed in her abdomen, Sheng Hailin began to understand why doctors did not want her to have IVF. When she was 5 months pregnant, Ms. Sheng was bloated and in excruciating pain and unable to get out of bed. Doctors recommended that she have a caesarean section, but because she hadn't fully recovered, doctors didn't say yes. Sheng Hailin's mother was very sad and sad when she heard about it. Because she has a child in her belly. Her husband saw her in pain and wanted to help her, but out of nowhere, he was by her side, with tears of eagerness and pain.
Both fetuses are healthy, and their health is completely based on Sheng Helin's pain. Sheng Hailin was born on November 28, 1993 in an ordinary family in Jiangyan District, Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, where she was the only child. Her mother, Hailin Sheng, is an obstetrician-gynecologist. Sheng Hailin is 23 years old this year. During her pregnancy, Sheng Hailin was hospitalized with an overload of heart and other organs, and doctors drew nearly 9 pounds of standing water from her body and hit 13 human blood proteins.
On May 24, 2010, when the fetus was more than 7 months old, Sheng Hailin was pushed into the delivery room for a cesarean section. The test is almost over, but until then, the stakes are high. At that time, Sheng Hailin's prenatal physical examination showed that she weighed only 110 pounds and was a "fat beauty". Because, she was worried that her life would not be in danger. During the caesarean section, Sheng Hailin was bleeding heavily, and the doctor urgently transfused her with 800cc, saving her life.
Sheng Hailin under the two girls, weighing 3.7 kg and 2.9 kg respectively. In the hospital, doctors gave them antenatal examinations and found that they all suffered from different degrees of premature birth and low birth weight diseases. In order to let these two young people grow up healthy and happy, the doctor decided to leave the child in the care of the mother. Sheng Hailin and her husband were very excited to hold the child, and she did not want to give up. She also gave her children two nicknames "Zhizhi" and "Huihui"
Sheng Hailin broke the limits of childbearing and became the oldest woman in China.
If there is another life...
The delivery went smoothly, and the torture that had tormented Sheng Hailin for so long was finally over, but the trouble on the other side also followed.
Sheng Hailin and her husband have a large pension, which adds up to $10,000 per month. She and her wife are a pair of retired elderly people, their children have established a family, and their lives are very happy. She and her wife have always felt that their lives are okay. She and her son work at a company. The days were also good. But for the first time since the birth of their children, they feel completely short of money.
Because of their premature babies, twins-to-twins have lived in a nursery in a neonatal care unit since birth, charging up to $6,000 a day. This is not a small expense, and this is still a pair of twin brothers, one named Tang Lei and the other called Donna. Tang Lei is 8 years old this year, and Donna is only 1 and a half years old. The two of them have been inseparable since childhood. After that, in order to take care of their two children, the couple also hired a wife and part-time workers for a month, which cost a lot of money to come and go, and soon they couldn't make ends meet.
By the time the child was 100 days old, two men in their 60s had to give up the opportunity to retire safely and go out to work to earn money. They work in Beijing, get up at 8 o'clock every morning, and work on the construction site. At the end of the day, they were tired and had back pain, but they still insisted on going to work. Because they know they have to take care of their children. Although life is not good, the old couple persevered and did their best to give the child a happy childhood.
Unfortunately, in 2016, Sheng Hailin's husband was paralyzed by overwork and stroke, leaving Sheng Hailin alone to support the family. Her health was getting worse and worse, and her family was in danger of collapsing, all of which made her feel desperate. In the face of the sudden blow, she did not flinch, but continued to struggle. She had to work harder than ever to make ends meet her family.
Sheng Hailin is a good doctor with rich experience in medicine, now retired, in order to make money, she often accepts health lectures from all over the country to share her medical experience. "I work a long day, spend more than a dozen hours a day in the hospital, and I have to do a lot of things every day. In order to earn as much money as possible, Sheng Hailin often travels to 17 different cities in a month.
But not only was she too old to keep up, but the side effects of the medications she had taken earlier to protect her fetus had been eroding her, making her feel nauseous, dizzy and tired all the time.
Sheng Hailin did not spend a lot of time with her two daughters, because she had been away from home for so many years, about ten days a month, and sometimes the schedule was very tight, and the time with her children was as little as two or three days. "I have to work overtime until late every day to get home." Sheng Hailin said, "I feel like a person with no sense of security and belonging. "I want my life to be full of sunshine and warmth." This made Sheng Hailin feel guilty.
She considered telling her two children the whole truth when they were a little older. "I don't want you to know, I just want them to understand what love is." "You know what? We are people who don't need love. "I know! I just love you!" "Why?" "I'm sure they'll understand me when they grow up," Shen said, "I'm just worried about how long I can live." ”
Sheng Hailin, who was raised by her parents, was never afraid of death before, but now she is a little afraid of death. She said that she has three important goals in life: one is to let her family live a happy life; the second is to raise her children to be excellent people; and the third is to live a healthy and happy life to the end. She wanted to live with her daughter as much as possible because she feared that she and her husband's children would not be cared for after they died.
By now, 11 years have passed since pregnancy to older childbearing, and both children have begun to understand things. In the past few years, Sheng Hailin has given lectures everywhere and saved three or four million US dollars. This money is enough for the two children to grow up, and Sheng Hailin's burden is also lightened.
Asked if she regretted her decision, Sheng admitted that she still hadn't thought about what would happen next: "If there is an afterlife, I don't think I'll want it again." ”
In the Spring Festival of 2014, since the establishment and implementation of the national "single two-child" policy, many "families who lost their independence" in the mainland seem to see new hope, so they came to the Sheng Hailin family and learned from Sheng Hailin here. "I think we should learn more about how to be parents." Sheng Hailin told everyone with her own experience. In her view, a successful parent must not only have love, but also learn to educate their children. Sheng Hailin did not deny her experience, she said the truth, hoping to help others.
But many people will choose to give up when they hear about IVF, because not only are the conditions for IVF more difficult for older women, but they will also risk their lives a lot, and then they have to spend a lot of money to raise their children, and even middle-class families like Sheng Hailin are struggling.
Thankfully, Sheng Hailin's two daughters are very sensible. Every day after school, they would come to the school gate on time and wait for the teacher to send them home. Sheng Hailin often said to her two children: "My two grandchildren are very cute, you must take more care of them!" Sometimes, as they walked together, Sheng Hailin was asked, "Is this your granddaughter?" ”
The girls would reply with a serious face, "No, this is our mother, although old, but still beautiful!" ”
Such an answer always made Sheng Hailin burst into tears.
Yes, she has faced one challenge and another pain since she made her choice, but there are moments like this when it's all worth it.
But even so, not every "lost family" can replicate Sheng Hailin's experience, and no one knows which one will come first, and tomorrow is still an accident.
We are not her, and we may not be free to judge Sheng Hailin's status or qualifications to choose the right person, but we can at least wish this family long-term happiness.