Pregnancy chances after 40

One Sunday morning, Le Thu Huong, 32, drives more than 200 kilometers to Saigon from her home in An Giang in the Mekong Delta. She is on a pilgrimage to thePhuoc Hai Tu (Jade Emperor Pagoda) in the heart of the metro, hoping a goddess there will bless her with a child. Huong married six years ago and is still childless despite trying desperately to conceive. She has been to many doctors, but in vain. Mounting pressure from her husband’s family to give birth to a child meant she turned to the gods. She says: "I heard some of my relatives say the pagoda is sought after by newlyweds and childless couples across the country, and for many the prayers have been answered. I wanted to try since I don’t know what else to do now."  But she did not tell her husband or his family about her plan to visit the pagoda because she was afraid they would deride her as being superstitious and even try to prevent her from going. More than one million, or 7.7 percent of married … [Read more...] about A few prayerful belly rubs for a baby

She is on a pilgrimage to the Phuoc Hai Tu (Jade Emperor Pagoda) in the heart of the metro, hoping a goddess there will bless her with a child. Huong married six years ago and is still childless despite trying desperately to conceive. She has been to many doctors, but in vain. Mounting pressure from her husband’s family to give birth to a child meant she turned to the gods. She says: "I heard some of my relatives say the pagoda is sought after by newlyweds and childless couples across the country, and for many the prayers have been answered. I wanted to try since I don’t know what else to do now."  But she did not tell her husband or his family about her plan to visit the pagoda because she was afraid they would deride her as being superstitious and even try to prevent her from going. More than one million, or 7.7 percent of married couples in Vietnam, are infertile, according to the Ministry of Health. In the pagoda in the small, nondescript Mai Thi Luu Street in … [Read more...] about Baby ‘boon’ers flock to Saigon pagoda for fertility goddess