Charlene Ratey welcomes us home with her two-month-old “miracle” baby girl, Margot, in her arms. Seems fulfilled. For her, motherhood at the age of 48 is “exceptional”.
Charlene and her husband decided to embark on the adventure of pregnancy again at the age of 38, and it’s a bumpy ride.
They had to undergo assisted reproduction. They suffered many failures, but nearly ten years after the operation began, Charlene was able to announce the pregnancy to her relatives.
“Margot was really a last chance baby. It was a last try.
A happy event for their family, but it surprised many people. And the co-owner of Pneus Ratté also had to face rulings.
“I think there are still a lot of taboos about it. I myself have heard things that I wouldn’t even reveal, that I find inappropriate.”
She also doesn’t have good memories of her medical follow-up.
“Me, I didn’t feel much support […] Support in general. And even on the medical level, the support is not like that… In fact, there are a lot of caveats. Instead of benevolence, it’s the warning, that’s what I felt and experienced. “So, you have to be strong,” she says.
Charlene is used to walking upstream in society and making her own place there. Together with his brother, they expanded their father’s business in the field of tires and mechanics. Pneus Ratté now has 23 service outlets.
She wants to pave the way again for women, especially those who dream of having a baby even after 40 years.
“I think delayed pregnancy is underappreciated,” thinks Charlene Ratey.
She finds this a shame, because women are often more confident and in a more stable financial situation than they were in their twenties.
“Me, I’m planning my retirement at 60 with Margot who’s going to be 12. She’s going to have a stay-at-home mum, we’re going to travel. We’re going to do a lot of activity. She has a mom who’s not uptight. There’s a lot of benefit,” she says.
