The world’s most fertile woman
EMMA TRIED THE PILL, CONDOMS, THE COIL, AND MORE – BUT SHE STILL FELL PREGNANT FOUR TIMES!
Emma Brown had never planned on having a big family. In fact, she didn’t want kids at all! ‘I enjoyed my social life way too much, and all I dreamed of was having a great career and travelling the world,’ explains Emma.
But now, at 31, Emma is a mum to four kids – Sofie, 12, Sarah, 11, Stevie, five, and one-year-old Reginald.
And each child was born against the odds.
At 17, Emma met 18-yearold truck driver Leigh in a club.
She’d had the 99 per centeffective contraceptive injection and had no intention of getting pregnant, but after returning from a girls’ holiday less than a year into her relationship with Leigh, she didn’t feel too well...
‘At first, I put it down to drinking too much and not getting enough sleep,’ says Emma, from Middlesex, UK.
‘But when I started being sick and getting stomach cramps, I thought there was something seriously wrong. I’d also put on weight, but I didn’t put two and two together.’
Worried, Emma went to her doctor and when a pregnancy test came back positive, she couldn’t believe it. Even more shocking was the fact that she was almost six months along!
‘I was stunned,’ admits Emma. ‘How could I be pregnant? OK, so I hadn’t had periods for ages, but that wasn’t unusual with the contraceptive jab... but I was still slim... there was no bump showing!’
The couple were living together and even though they’d never spoken about having kids, Leigh threw himself into preparing for the unexpected birth.
Then, on a Saturday night just two months after the discovery, Emma went into labour. After a mere 45 minutes, baby Sofie was born.
‘It was love at first sight. Sofie was perfect! I’d never felt happiness like it,’ the mum says.
Despite being besotted with her new baby, Emma, aged 19, went on the pill. She was very careful to never miss taking one, as she didn’t want another baby.
But when Sofie was just over a year old, in April 2006, Emma started feeling sick and knew instantly she was pregnant – once again, she was almost six months gone!
She hadn’t had any periods since before Sofie’s birth, due to the hormones in the contraceptive injection – and taking the pill afterwards had meant that her periods hadn’t ever returned.
As with her first pregnancy, this one hardly showed – Emma was as slim as ever.
Shocked, Emma underwent tests, but the medics appeared as stumped as she was.
Once again, her labour lasted less than an hour and little baby Sarah was born weighing 3kg in July 2006.
Sadly, in the months that followed, Emma and Leigh broke up – and it wasn’t until four years later that Emma
met 24-year-old soldier Adam.
There was an instant attraction between the pair, but because Emma had no desire to have any more children, she made herself doubly safe by taking the contraceptive pill and using condoms.
But then the inexplicable happened. Emma fell pregnant.
Stevie – another girl – was born in January 2012 and, while both proud parents were over the moon at her arrival, Emma decided that enough was finally enough.
‘After Stevie was born, I went straight to my GP and begged to be sterilised, but my doctor thought that at 25 I was too young and persuaded me to have a coil fitted,’ Emma says.
‘She suggested the copper coil, as opposed to the one that released hormones, as we were starting to wonder whether the hormones I’d been taking were somehow making me more fertile. I trusted the doctor when she said this type of contraceptive could be the one to work for me.’
The coil served her well until March last year, when Emma discovered she was pregnant yet again!
‘This time, I wasn’t very surprised,’ Emma admits. ‘I was starting to realise that no contraception could stop me from getting pregnant. Adam was amazed, but put the pregnancy down to him having super-sperm rather than me being super-fertile – and baby Reginald arrived a month premature on October 19, 2016.
‘It was great having a little boy after having three girls: little Reginald made my gang feel complete.’
Sadly, Emma and Adam grew apart after the birth of Reginald and the couple split, but they remain friends.
Finally, Emma’s doctor agreed that sterilisation might be the only option, and Emma underwent the operation in April this year.
‘There’s actually a zero chance of me getting pregnant at the moment,’ says a nowsingle Emma. ‘I’m actually too scared to have sex now, so I’m just not bothering. It’s just not worth the stress.’
But if she meets someone new and gets over her anxiety, will this last resort method work for Emma?
‘My doctor says that even with sterilisation, there’s a one in 200 chance of me getting pregnant. Knowing my luck, I’ll be that 0.05 per cent! All I can say is: “Watch this space!”’
‘I’M ACTUALLY TOO SCARED TO HAVE SEX NOW, SO I’M JUST NOT BOTHERING. IT’S JUST NOT WORTH THE STRESS’