Annegret Raunigk, the 65-year-old German woman with 13 children who's five months pregnant with quadruplets, said in a TV interview Monday that she's "healthy and fit" and expects to raise her babies to adulthood — when she'd be in her 80s.
Raunigk, a Russian and English elementary school teacher from the Spandau borough of Berlin, acknowledges in the interview on RTL TV's "Extra" — which is following her unusual pregnancy weekly — that the procedure by which she was implanted with four embryos is illegal in Germany, which allows it only for women under 40. That's why she traveled to Ukraine to have it done, she says.
The four babies are due in August — just in time for Raunigk's retirement from the school system.
Raunigk first made news in 2005, when she gave birth at age 55 to her 13th child, a daughter named Lelia. She told RTL that she sought the new pregnancy because all of Lelia's siblings are adults and Lelia wanted brothers and sisters closer to her own age.
In the "Extra" segment that aired Monday night, Lelia is present for a medical examination of her mother and appears shocked when she hears the gynecologist refer to Raunigk's "extreme risk pregnancy" — which he says could end badly for her mom.
The gynecologist, Dr. Kai Hertwig, tells RTL: "We have little or no experience with a pregnant woman of this age, but currently the pregnancy is going very well."
Even the program's host seems skeptical, saying on camera: "I wonder how she can meet the needs of her adolescent children" — especially since the children's sperm donor father isn't known and since Raunigk would be well over 80 when they reach adulthood.
But Raunigk says: "I'm not afraid. I just assume that I will stay healthy and fit."
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