Having breakfast on a sun-drenched holiday in Sardinia, Pilli Cortese looked fondly at her family as five-year-old Amelie collapsed into a fit of giggles with her dad. But then a passing waiter made a comment that wiped the contented smile from her face.
Leaning towards her with a conspiratorial look, he said: ‘Being a grandparent can be a full-time job.’
Pilli shook her head, replying: ‘Actually, I’m not her granny – I’m her mother!’
Mortified, the waiter offered an apology. But, while most women would be devastated to be mistaken for their child’s grandmother, it’s water off a duck’s back for straight-talking Pilli. After all, it isn’t the first time it has happened. She may look young for her age, but there’s no escaping the fact that she is 55.
‘Lots of people have grandchildren by the time they are my age,’ says Pilli, a freelance TV producer and filmmaker. And there is an extra dimension to their family set-up. No one mistakes Amelie’s dad, Ross, for her grandfather. At 34, he is 21 years younger than Pilli. So, technically, she is old enough to be both their mothers.
It’s not genuine mistakes that bother her though, it’s the judgment that sometimes accompanies them; when an innocent comment is followed by wide eyes and the assumption that having a baby at her age is wrong.
‘Luckily, our family and friends are very supportive,’ she says. ‘But I know there are people who think we’ve been selfish to have a child so late in life – that I could be dead before she is grown up.
‘But I want them to know that it is the most unselfish thing we could have done, giving life to another soul. It would be selfish of me to deny her existence because I want to enjoy a little more quiet time.
‘Those people don’t have a clue about what it means to be a mother, or about just how hard we had to fight for Amelie to exist.’
Pilli Cortese, 55, with her husband Ross Lowe, 34, and their five-year-old daughter Amelie
Indeed, the path to parenthood was far from easy. Not only did Pilli suffer two devastating miscarriages but, when she finally conceived via donor egg, doctors discovered she was expecting twins – a prospect, at her age, that could end in the death of both her babies or Pilli herself.
‘It wasn’t a normal IVF journey,’ she says. ‘We describe it as our odyssey. The relief and joy that it has all been worth it is incredible.’
Certainly, watching the family play together, there’s little doubt that their home in west London is brimming with love. Amelie dotes on her parents and is, of course, oblivious to the fact that hers is the oldest mummy in the park.
And it’s not that Pilli didn’t know what she was letting herself in for; she has two grown-up sons, just a few years younger than Ross, from a previous relationship.
So why did she decide to put herself through the ravages of pregnancy and birth at the age of 50?
‘Why not?’ she laughs. ‘When I was young, I imagined I’d be taking a bit more time for myself by this point. My life is about as far from that as I could have imagined, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Having a baby in my 50s was physically much more difficult than in my 20s – I struggle to keep up with Amelie sometimes when we are running around together – but her dad can do those things easily. Amelie never loses out because of it.’
The couple met in October 2014, when Pilli was 44 and Ross just 23. Having separated from her ex-husband a few years earlier, Pilli had moved out of the family home into an apartment with her younger son, then 14.
‘Ross was busking on the street in London. I stopped to watch him on my way to a dance class and we had a brief conversation,’ says Pilli. ‘I really liked his music and I thought what a nice man he was. I never thought I’d see him again.’
But over the next few weeks the pair kept bumping into each other: ‘In a city of ten million people, it was quite extraordinary.
‘I’d be walking down the street and suddenly I’d hear his guitar. We’d both laugh and end up chatting. I promised I’d follow his performance page on Facebook.’
When Ross, who now works in finance, asked his followers if anyone knew of a spare room, Pilli found herself offering him hers – and romance followed. ‘We started to develop feelings for each other,’ Pilli recalls. ‘I’d had no intention of getting into another relationship so it blindsided me a little. I knew he was younger than me, but not by how much.’
Incredibly, neither thought to ask the other’s age. It was only when, three months into their relationship, a friend asked Ross how old he was during a dinner that the truth came out.
‘When he said 23, I almost choked on my chicken,’ says Pilli. ‘He looked and acted a lot older than his years.
‘I bit my lip until we were back at the flat. When I asked him if he knew how old I was, he said early 30s. “I’m 44!” I blurted. I expected him to baulk, but he just said: “So what?”’
Although their relationship continued, Pilli worried that admitting her deep feelings to Ross would put unfair pressure on him to stay with her – fearing he would one day want to leave.
Parents Ross and Pilli celebrate their daughter Amelie’s birthday with a cake and presents
‘I decided to just live day to day,’ she says. ‘But after six months Ross told me he felt the same way I did about him. He was kind, genuine – I’d never been with a man who cared about me so much, and without agenda.’
The match was met with surprise but support from Pilli’s friends – and after an initial period of disbelief and teenage angst from her younger son, he too grew close to Ross.
‘Both boys had got to know Ross while he was living with us anyway,’ she said. ‘They really liked him, and they wanted me to find someone who made me happy – they could see Ross did that. They were both very mature about the age gap.’
After three years together, Ross told Pilli he felt ready to have children of his own. Although she wanted that too, she was worried.
‘I knew I was fitter and healthier than most women my age,’ she says. ’I did yoga, ate well, and I felt capable of having a baby. But my eggs were half a century old!’
At 49, Pilli had not yet gone through the menopause, so the couple started trying naturally.
‘Knowing it would be difficult to conceive, I visited a shaman in Bali with Ross in the summer of 2019,’ she says. ‘And every time we had sex, I’d do a headstand for 30 minutes afterwards to help gravity along. I’d end up completely red in the face.’
As a filmmaker, Pilli decided to document their extraordinary journey. Amazingly, she did manage to fall pregnant naturally twice in September and December of 2019 – but, sadly, lost both pregnancies at just a few weeks.
‘After the second loss, I realised this wasn’t going to work for us,’ she says. ‘We explored adoption but the process was just going to take too long. My age meant we wanted to start our journey as quickly as possible.’
It was then that Pilli stumbled across egg donation. Initially deterred by the thought of her partner’s sperm being mixed with another, younger woman’s egg – ‘it felt like a betrayal’ – she eventually came round to the idea after Ross reassured her she would always be the baby’s mother.
She says: ‘I realised that genetics are not what makes a mother. Real motherhood is about sacrifice, unconditional love and nurturing a child.’
After much research, the couple opted for a clinic in Cyprus which, at £6,000, cost roughly half of what it would in the UK.
In February 2020, Pilli started taking a cocktail of hormones and medication ready for an embryo to be implanted.
Despite the start of the pandemic in March that year, they managed to catch one of the last flights out of the UK to reach the clinic in time for egg implantation. Days after the procedure, they were delighted to discover that Pilli was pregnant.
At 13 weeks, however, the couple received devastating news. Pilli, who had been encouraged by the clinic to implant two embryos to double their chances of pregnancy, was carrying twins.
‘Statistically, there’s obviously a much higher chance that I won’t be around for as much of her life,’ says Pilli, who worries about the future when she will be 70 and Amelie is at university
Her age meant there was a high chance that neither baby would survive a twin pregnancy, and that Pilli could lose her own life.
There was only one option: a foetal reduction – terminating one embryo in order to save the other.
‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life,’ says Pilli.
‘We were spared the pain of having to decide which foetus to terminate, as it is determined medically by their position in the womb.
‘But the procedure was carried out under local anaesthetic and I wept for the baby I would never meet because I was stopping their life. I have never felt pain like it. I wanted to shout and scream at the doctors, telling them to let my baby live. But then I would be denying both of them the chance at life.’
The couple waited until the four-month mark before telling Pilli’s sons about the pregnancy: ‘To say they were surprised was a bit of an understatement, but they were supportive and happy for us.’
Baby Amelie arrived safely in November 2020, two months after Pilli’s 50th birthday, by elective caesarean section.
‘As I held her in my arms, I couldn’t believe she was finally here with us,’ she says. ‘All the struggles melted away.
‘I breastfed Amelie through the night, but Ross got up with me, did all the nappy changes and ran around looking after the house while I rested. As Amelie grew up, he was happy to do the back-breaking work of helping her learn to walk, bending over to hold her hand.
‘We were blissfully happy, but my body took a little longer to recover from the birth. Still, six weeks later, I was back doing yoga, determined to keep myself fit and well for Amelie.’
Being freelance, Pilli was able to fit her work around childcare and Ross, who dotes on his daughter, loves nothing more than playing with her.
When Amelie was two, the Cyprus clinic contacted the couple to let them know their embryos were due to be destroyed; did they want to use them?
‘We knew I couldn’t go through another pregnancy at 52,’ she says, ‘But I couldn’t bear for the embryos to be destroyed, having already lost one of my babies.’
The couple looked into embryo donation and connected with a couple in Canada who were unable to have children, before eventually managing to have their unused embryos sent to them.
Three years after Amelie was born, the mother in Canada gave birth to her biological sister.
‘We have become great friends with the other family,’ Pilli smiles. ‘We’ve been a part of their journey from the start and it feels as though we’ve always known each other.
‘Their little girl looks just like Amelie. We are planning to meet in person for the first time later this year. We’ve always been open with Amelie and she is excited to meet her genetic sister – although she knows she has another mum and dad.’
But does Pilli ever worry about the future, when she is 70 and her daughter will still be at university?
‘Of course,’ she replies. ‘Statistically, there’s obviously a much higher chance that I won’t be around for as much of her life.
‘But time is guaranteed to no one. Plenty of people die young. I look after myself, I’m fit and healthy.
‘My mum had me at 42 and is still going strong at 97. I think I’ve got pretty good genes. But even if I am not here to see Amelie have her own children or walk down the aisle, she has her father.’
And she insists that there are plenty of benefits to being an older mum.
‘Both my boys were loved and wanted, but I always felt a sense of sacrifice at missing part of my youth – I had my elder son, who is now 30, at 25. My friends were out clubbing and I was at home with a baby. Now, there’s nowhere else I want to be at night.
‘When I had the boys, I had been at university doing a thesis. Now, my work is flexible and, financially, Ross and I are in a much more stable position. I take so much pleasure from doing the little things with Amelie; playing in the bath, baking together, picking flowers and gardening.’
And what of her age-gap relationship?
‘Of course, I sometimes think about what will happen to our relationship when we get older. When I am 70, Ross will still only be 49. Do I worry about whether he will one day decide he would rather be with someone closer to his own age? Everyone in a relationship with an age gap does at some point.
‘Ross is a very spiritual person; we both believe that we are two souls who have found each other, so hopefully we will be together until the end.’
As for sharing their incredible story, Pilli says she hopes it reminds ‘anyone chasing an impossible dream that life can still surprise you in ways far greater than you can imagine’.
She adds: ‘I have learned that life can throw you curveballs – and that it’s important to live in the moment and embrace the path that life sets for you, regardless of what anyone else thinks.’
Pilli’s documentary about their journey is available to watch at youtube.com/@Chosen.Mama_7.11
