Isha Sesay shares her Pregnancy Journey as a 46-Year Old Single Woman

Isha Sesay, the CEO of OkayMedia, has over the decades built a reputable career in the media for herself. For over 13 years, she was an anchor at CNN International, travelling the world to cover global topics and interview newsmakers. She is an author, a UN Goodwill Ambassador, and the founder of a non-profit to empower African girls. But in her quiet moments, she said, “the one thing I wanted the most, to become a mother, remained out of reach.”

“If you’d told the 16-year-old me that at 46, I’d be divorced, single and having a baby on my own — by choice! — I’d have shuddered and firmly said “no!” Back then, I had very definite ideas about the future course my personal life would take, and it didn’t look like this. I imagined something way more straightforward and dare I say it, conventional,” she wrote, in a special piece on TODAY.

Isha wrote: “a brief marriage to a kind man didn’t result in children, and then the year I turned 40, my mum had a catastrophic stroke, leaving me no emotional space to contemplate anything other than caring for her. Six years later, she tried relationships again, but it didn’t work out.

“It was then, in the aftermath of our inevitable breakup, that it hit me: Not having a child would be the greatest regret of my life. And with my biological clock ticking down, if I was waiting for the right man to come along before I did it, well, I might just find myself out of time,” she wrote.

She didn’t want that because she really wanted a child. So she “decided to take control of my life and settle on the bravest and scariest decision I have ever made: to have a baby on my own”.

The process hasn’t been easy, Isha said, with endless meetings, examinations, medications, and an unexpected fibroid surgery. “But perhaps most challenging of all has been the emotional dimension of this journey, especially surrounding my choice of a sperm donor…. Ultimately, I made a decision — entirely on my own — and I have no regrets,” she added.

Her first IVF attempt was unsuccessful but she wasn’t deterred up until the third attempt when the test kit displayed “pregnant”. It’s been weeks and she’s still trying to adapt herself to saying “I am pregnant”.

In the weeks ahead, she plans to share more of her life-changing experience “in the hope that if there is anyone out there being held back from chasing their heart’s desire — no matter what it is — maybe my story will spark something in them and provide the little nudge they need to go for it.”

Read the full article here. 

Photo Courtesy of Isha Sesay via TODAY