‘I couldn’t have sex because of a rare condition, now I’m having a baby at 41’
A woman has shared her happiness at being pregnant at the age of 41 after living with a rare condition, which stopped her being able to have sex.
Saffron Mullen, 41, a wellness coach, from Glasgow, Scotland, struggled to have intercourse due to a rare anatomical problem which caused a blockage in her vagina.
While she had surgery to open the blockage, aged 23, this left her with severe scar tissue, making sex almost impossible.
"I couldn't have sex at all until I was 29," she explains.
Mullen's anatomical problem preventing her having sex involved a partial blockage in the vaginal canal, which wouldn't go away on its own.
She discovered the same issue had contributed to the death of her grandmother's sister, who died at 14 in the 1930's when she suffered toxic shock syndrome after being unable to bleed freely on her period.
Doctors hoped Mullen's first surgery would fix the issue, but it resulted in her unable to have sex because scar tissue developed following the operation.
Several other conditions she was living with including endometriosis, chronic fatigue syndrome and achalasia, a neurological problem in her oesophagus, which made eating and swallowing difficult, all contributed to her health issues.
Over the years Mullen contended with the conditions, which took a toll on her mental and physical health, relationships, and career.
"It was just one thing after the other - it was like a comedy script," she says of her health problems.
Recalling how not being able to haver sex impacted her life, Mullen says: "Previous partners found it too much.
"There's only so much understanding a person can have, and I was dealing with health problems as well as sexual ones.
"It made me feel like I had nothing to offer."
While she waited for a sexual therapy to treat the blockage in her vagina, Mullen began changing her diet, mindset and lifestyle choices to improve her health in the hope that one day she could become a mum if she met the right man.
At 29 she began having a form of sexual physiotherapy called pelvic floor therapy, which allowed her to eventually recover and have a normal, healthy sex life.
But by then she began dealing with then-undiagnosed endometriosis.
The reproductive condition, which causes womb lining to grow elsewhere in the body, caused pain and heavy periods.
In June 2023 she had a surgery to remove lesions caused by her endometriosis, and in April 2023 underwent an operation to help her manage the symptoms of the achalasia.
At the same time, she met her partner, and they decided to try for a baby, despite doctors warning her it would be difficult because by then she was 40.
"I had my endometriosis surgery then my achalasia surgery in summer of 2023, around the time I met my partner and we decided to start a family," Mullen explains.
"Doctors suggested I do IVF or freeze my eggs because of my age, but something told me I needed to follow what nature intended.
"I conceived naturally days before turning 41," she continues.
"I feel like I manifested it because I believed strongly and I was determined to prove the statistics wrong."
Ahead of trying for a family Mullen overhauled her whole lifestyle in a bid to improve the symptoms she was experiencing from her various health conditions.
These included switching to a plant-based diet to reduce digestive inflammation, and cutting out chemical exposure by using only natural deodorant and skincare, and using only organic products.
She also took up hobbies such as meditating, reading self-help books and going for walks in nature with her dogs to improve her mental wellbeing.
"I knew the biology wasn't in my favour but I thought if I'm doing everything to keep my reproductive system healthy, it might happen," she says of her decision not to undergo IVF or freeze her eggs.
"I didn't want to hear about the chances of miscarriage," she continues. "We just put it in the hands of the universe.
"In February I found out I was pregnant, and I found out at the gender scan we're having a boy, due in October."
Mullen says she is sharing her story to raise awareness of the long diagnosis journeys some women go through.
She wants medical professionals to better understand the impact living with chronic conditions can have and help tackle the assumptions made about women and their biological clock.
"I'm proof just because someone is older it doesn't mean they'll have problems naturally conceiving," she explains.
"I'm confident if I hadn't kept a strong mindset this wouldn't have happened."
Read more about pregnancy:
5 pregnancy-safe exercises recommended by experts (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)
The rise of pregnancies in women over 40 as Kourtney Kardashian welcomes baby boy (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)
How to navigate sex during pregnancy (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)
