Logo
Overview
Sonia Magliocchi's path to motherhood is one of profound grief, resilience, and hope. After losing her fiancé Paul Faulkner to an undetected heart condition in the middle of the night, Sonia was left with one frozen embryo, one chance, and years of uncertainty ahead of her.

Sonia had completed three egg collections with Genea at the age of 41, resulting in 15 embryos. Of the three that could be tested, only one was chromosomally suitable for transfer. As Genea's Chief Scientific Officer Dean Morbeck explains, embryos with an incorrect number of chromosomes will typically fail to implant or result in miscarriage. That single viable embryo was frozen in 2018 and remained in storage for almost six years while Sonia navigated grief, a family health crisis in Canada, the COVID pandemic, and endometriosis surgery.

By the time she was ready to transfer the embryo, Sonia was 48 and in perimenopause. A Genea fertility specialist managed the transfer with careful hormone therapy to replicate the conditions needed for a successful implantation, first using oestrogen to prepare the uterine lining, then progesterone to support the transfer itself.

The embryo took. Sonia welcomed her daughter MollyRose via planned caesarean section at 48, with the name chosen to honour both Paul, who had always called their embryo Molly when they imagined their future family, and Sonia's mother Rose.

Now 16 months old, MollyRose looks more like her father every day. Sonia describes her as both a miracle and a source of healing.