A 73-year-old woman became the “world’s oldest mom” after giving birth to twin daughters.

Yerramatti Mangayamma is now facing the challenge as a single mom after her husband Raja, 84, died of a heart attack. The twins, Rama Tulasi and Uma Tulasi, are now 12 months old.

“It makes me very emotional when I think of him gone,” said Yerrametti, now 75, from Andhra Pradesh, Southern India.

“He only had 12 months with his girls, but at least he tasted the joy of fatherhood before he died,” she continued.

At the beginning of their marriage, Yerramatti and Raja tried to conceive, but ultimately failed. They tried multiple medications after consulting various specialists, but nothing worked.

Then their battle came to a heartbreaking end when Yerramatti entered early menopause at 40 years old.

“It was an awful time,” Yerramatti said. “It felt like a door was shutting. We considered adoption, but in the end we didn’t go through with it.”

But then, in the summer of 2018, when Yerramatti was 72, she heard that a woman in her 30s in her village had given birth to a baby after having IVF.

“I’d never heard of it and was desperate to find out more,” she said. “Knowing how much I’d wanted a child, she passed on the details of the clinic. I knew IVF would be tough, but I wanted to try.”

Yerramatti contacted Dr. Umashankar Sanakkayala, from Ahalya Nursing Home, in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, Southern India. In November 2018, they met for the first time.

“The doctor carried out some tests to check my health and when they came back positive, he agreed to help me. I wept with joy. My pregnancy journey had been so negative up until this point, but receiving even the slightest positivity was overwhelming,” Yerramatti said.

Yerramatti and Raja paid 65,000 Indian rupees from their savings for their first cycle of treatment. And as Yerramatti wasn’t producing any eggs, a donor egg was used and fertilized with Raja’s sperm.

In January 2019, they got the news that Yerramatti had conceived. After three months, she found out she was having twins.

Rama Tulasi and Uma Tulasi were born by c-section on September 5, 2019 at Ahalya Nursing Home.

“Holding them for the first time was beautiful. We were kept in hospital for a couple of weeks so doctors could make sure the three of us were healthy, but thankfully we were then allowed home,” Yerramatti said.

“At first it was hard. The doctor told me not to breastfeed, as it would put pressure on my body, so I used milk banks. The sleepless nights were relentless, but I found meditation helped,” she added.

Dr Umashankar Sanakkayala, 46, from Ahalya Nursing Home, has made it his life’s work to provide those in need with access to IVF.

“When I first opened my clinic I wanted to make IVF affordable for everyone, not just the rich. I wanted to help everyone have a family because in India, family is everything. And if people can’t afford it then we arrange financial help,” he said.