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Annegret Raunigk, 65-year-old mother of 13, pregnant with quadruplets, report says
Annegret Raunigk, bottom row, second from left, who was 55 at the time, with her youngest daughter Lelia, on her knees, and other children and grandchildren in Cologne, Germany, on Dec. 11, 2005. Credit: AFP / Getty Images
By MEGHAN GLYNNmeghan.glynn@newsday.com April 13, 2015
A Berlin woman who, at age 65, is already mother to 13 children (and grandmother to seven), is pregnant again -- and this time she's carrying quadruplets, German media reported Sunday.
Annegret Raunigk, who is an elementary school Russian and English teacher, said on RTL radio that the reason she tried to become pregnant again was because her youngest child, 9, asked for a younger sibling.
Having received both egg and sperm donations, Raunigk told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the news she was pregnant with quadruplets came as a shock. "After the doctor has found that there are four, I had to just think about it," she said.
Ultimately, when her doctors posed the option to selectively abort individual embryos, Raunigk said that she never even gave it a thought.
Assuming the pregnancy proceeds normally, RTL said Raunigk will give birth to her 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th children this summer -- becoming the world's oldest mother of quadruplets.
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Raunigk also made headlines in Germany about 10 years ago when she had her last child at the age of 55, according to the Daily Mail.