Roselyn Sanchez, who played Carmen Luna on Devious Maids, is expecting her second child with husband, actor Eric Winter. The couple, who have a five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sebella, have revealed their second will be a boy. They have also spoken to People about how physically and emotionally trying it is to conceive through IVF. Roselyn is 44 and Eric is 41. They didn’t start trying for a family until their mid 30s and were stunned that they couldn’t conceive after three years of trying. Even after successfully carrying their daughter, they struggled again to conceive their son.
Actors Eric Winter and Roselyn Sanchez are finally going to welcome a second child into their family, but the road to that reality was not an easy one.
“We tried [to conceive naturally] for at least three years [before Sebi] and it was a shock,” says Devious Maids star Sanchez, 44. “I have four siblings … my mom is very fertile. I knew that I had endometriosis, but with me, it wasn’t an indication that I was going to have a problem with conceiving because my tubes were clean and my ovaries were clean. It was devastating.”
“All your life you avoid having children and when you want to have children, it’s so difficult when you leave it for late,” adds the second-time mom-to-be, who tells PEOPLE she and Winter, 41, didn’t start trying to have a baby until she was in her mid 30s.
“We did artificial insemination. We’ve done the IVF,” she says. “[Sometimes], even though I did my whole cycle of shots and I got my eggs, my body would just go haywire. And we didn’t time it properly and I would ovulate, so the whole cycle was lost.”
“We put in multiple embryos and the doctor basically said, ‘Look, even with multiple embryos, you have less than 15 percent chance of getting pregnant,’ ” Winter adds. “If anyone told you you had a 15 percent chance at anything, you would never believe it.”
Says Sanchez, “It’s been up and down … the journey to conceive [our son] started two years ago, and I have been basically pumping my body with hormones for six years on and off.”
“Even though [I’m] 44, I don’t feel like I’m 44,” Sanchez says. “I take care of my body, I’m very clean, I’m very healthy. It’s brutal, mentally and emotionally, when you go, ‘Why is this happening to me when I take care of myself? What do you mean my eggs are not viable anymore?’ ”
“I just wish that [conversations about fertility were] more out in the open,” she says, “so you can make a more educated decision of when you want to be a mom.”
“[Fertility treatments are] super expensive — what you put your body through, it’s not easy, and it’s sad,” Sanchez continues.
“If I have any advice, it’s don’t wait until you’re 40-something. It’s not that easy. It’s possible — we’re doing it. I feel awesome because I’m going, ‘You know what? It happened at a point in my life that I’m very mature.’ I was ready, I’m fulfilled, I’m financially stable. All those things are great, but it’s not easy.”
I’ve heard similar comments from women about how they spent so much time trying not to get pregnant and then they spent just as much time trying to get pregnant later. I was 36 and 38 when I had my kids. Because we were starting later than most our friends/colleagues, we were surrounded by stories of fertility treatments and struggles. It’s smart to reach an agreement about the amount of time and resources you both are willing to devote to conceive a child. I understand Roselyn’s perspective that she was healthy and should still be fertile. You can be told something your whole life and still not understand that it applies to you. On the other hand, it just sucks that our fertility takes a nose dive after a certain age. Like, I get we need to physically be able to raise kids, but mentally some of us need the deferment, you know?
Roselyn and Eric have written a children’s book that features their daughter, whom they call Sebi (cute), as the main character. It’s called Sebi and the Land of the Cha Cha Cha and it came out just last Tuesday. The couple is active in many charities both in the US and om Roselyn’s native Puerto Rico. So when the book came out, Eric a href=”http://people.com/babies/eric-winter-daughter-sebella-inspired-new-book/”>took the real life Sebi to the NICU at White Memorial Medical Center to teach Sebi to give back. I thought that was lovely.
Photo credit: WENN Photos
This is just the facts for women, if we wait later on in life it will be harder for us to have kids. I think this is the reason why many women are going into entrepreneur, so that they don’t have to choose between career and kids.
Fertility issues can occur even with young women. It isn’t JUST older women.
Yep. I dealt with fertility issues from 28-30. Plenty of my friends also did in their 20s and 30s.
Of course it affects young women but as an older woman, it’s to be expected that you are less fertile. It’s just the way nature is, with the inevitable exceptions of course. By age 40 most women are looking at perimenopause – and that normally signals a big drop in fertility.
@Pandy: the average age of menopause on this planet is 51.
At 40 you are still quite far from it.
Menopause is considered precocious under the age of 45 and the fertility drops dramatically at 43…so perimenopause isn’t really n’sync with average women these age.
Sorry but I like facts
Please stop implying that infertility is something that only impacts older women. It’s so frustrating. I’ve had reproductive health challenges since I was 18 years old. I’m 35 now and have been through IVF that, sadly, ended in a miscarriage that devastated me. But I’ve been trying to get pregnant for YEARS. It’s not like I just sat around and waited thinking that 35 would be the best time to get pregnant! I’ve been working on this for years. I truly truly send my love to this woman and I’m so sorry she’s going through this. But it is so frustrating and upsetting to consistently see the fertility and reproductive health conversation dominated by older women because these are two separate issues. (Although frankly, if she had endo then I do question what her doctors were telling her because her problems probably were not as much about her age and linked to that issue first.)
The infertile community cannot get the help or public attention we need if this conversation keeps getting misinterpreted as being only about older women who waited too long to have kids. Pelvic floor disorder, endo, pcos—all serious things that need attention and are not linked to age!
I don’t think she was saying it “just” affects older women. It is objective fact to say that fertility starts to wain as you age.
Celebrities seem to have a warped view of their true age. Just because they have all kinds of cosmetic treatments to try and stave off the aging process doesn’t mean they can wait till they are in their forties and then voila, get pregnant when they decide they want a baby.
As women we have a certain window of time to get pregnant naturally and easily, not fair, I know, but true none the less.
Exactly. She can keep herself as healthy as she wants but at 40+ it doesn’t matter how good the outside looks, things are still changing on the inside.
W
Wow Cara and Ange, bravo on your unnecessarily snide and unempathetic comments.
Your comments are as though you have not read anything she has said but instead, inaccurately attributed her fertility issues as entirely her own fault due to her vain, skewed ‘celebrity’ sense of self. To me, that seems almost as though you are resentful of her maintaining her health and shape in her 30s to her 40s; therefore implying it’s her own fault for being a preening, narcissistic celebrity instead of being a ‘normal’ woman and having children at a younger age. Then her problems wouldn’t exist! What a silly, vacuous woman Roselyn is.
Roselyn is clearly highlighting how many women in this day and age brush off the possibility of a significant reduction in fertility from your mid-30s for a multitude of reasons, but then are confronted with the issue when their time comes to having children. I think no woman should have to feel guilty for wanting to start a family later instead of being pressured into getting pregnant at a younger age and risk being not entirely prepared or ready for a family. While statistically your fertility does decrease with age, most women will not face the problem of being unable to conceive naturally at all from their mid-30s.
I feel for Roselyn, particularly how her journey to having children has panned out. What she said struck a cord with me as being 24, I have always thought I have at least 7-10 years before I need to start considering having children. Similarly to Roselyn’s mother, my mother conceived me at 36, had me at 37 without any complications, and managed to conceive again easily at 38. I had always simply (and now decidedly stupidly) assumed the same would go for me when my time came. Now, I’ll take a more considered and hopefully realistic approach to my fertility as I also would see myself being ready to have children from my early to mid 30s onwards.
I also sincerely hope Roselyn is now over the moon to have conceived a second time and all the best luck for her new addition to the family.
I went through early menopause and had a similar feeling. Luckily (for me) I’d already had my children and was done having them. But I’d always been healthy and felt young, so to go through this sudden thing at 38 was tremendously jarring for me. And I wasted a lot of money on pregnancy tests too because I literally couldn’t believe it.
Early menopause is hard. I was 34. Didn’t know what was happening. Symptoms were terrible. Mourned having the ability to have children taken away from me.
From talking to friends who are doctors and other women, it seems menopause is happening at an earlier age than older generations. Also young girls are starting their periods much earlier than older generations.
I wonder if any research has been done on this subject.
I did IVF at 40 luckily worked the first time I had unexplained infertility no reason why it couldn’t happen just didn’t after 2 years of tablets / IUI bit the bullet costly and not what you put your body through so much to me but your mind. I had to tell people at work if I start acting crazy this is why, it’s like PMS x10. Thankfully 1 go it worked.
A friend put off having kids until her late 30s and hasn’t been able to conceive. She thought she had time because SO many people told her stories about their sister/mother/friend conceiving naturally at 40, and it just hasn’t happened for her for years now. Women need to know that their fertility declines with age and what their likelihood of conceiving is, so they can make informed choices.
Really though, how many women don’t know this by now?
Many, it seems. My friend, for example, said she would have started trying years earlier if someone had made clear she would have only a 3-5% chance of getting pregnant each cycle.
If you look on other CB articles about older moms, there’s always a bunch of people showing up to comment about how they had their first at 40 with no problems. Plus, women these days are told to be secure in their careers/travel/be married x-years before trying. Some don’t realize the possibility of kids won’t always be waiting once those things are done.
I agree, unfortunately there are still a ton of women that think getting pregnant in your late 30’s and 40’s is easy because they don’t read any health articles but they see the tabloids constantly announcing the latest celebrity who is pregnant in her 40’s.
I’m also shocked by the number of women that don’t know how likely miscarriages are. The latest research is pointing to 25% of pregnancies ending in miscarriage (many before a woman realizes she is pregnant). Yet so many women are blind sided when they miscarry which makes it way, way worse. I feel like that’s something that should be covered in school when they learn about reproduction. It’s way better going in knowing it could happen I think.
I’m glad they were able to conceive.
I’m just here because I remember when we was Rex on Days of our Lives lol.
Is this honestly something women don’t realize? I’m really asking because it should be common knowledge that biologically speaking, having your children before 30 is best. I’m not saying that women should. But … once you’re past 30, every year it gets a lot harder. Which f*cking sucks if you want kids because of course, you also don’t want to be dependent on a man. So when do you have kids? I guess there’s always a better time but if you do want them and your circumstances are right, maybe don’t wait until your late 30’s if you can help it?
No really, is this not common knowledge?
I don’t think this is true, actually. Until 37, most women have about a 20% chance each cycle. That being said, if you aren’t of average fertility, starting earlier means you’ll find out there’s a problem earlier. It’s a lot easier to do IVF in your 20s than in your 40s.
I was 28 when I got pregnant. 29 when I gave birth. My doctor at Planned Parenthood told me I was considered high-risk because of my age…………
I was 35 when I had my first child and the doctor referred to my pregnancy as “geriatric”.
I think most women are aware that fertility declines after 30, but don’t realize to what extent. And really, it’s all a game of chance, because every woman is different. You don’t know what your own particular fertility story will be until you try…….but if you wait until after 35 and encounter problems, then the medical community will shrug its shoulders at you and say “what did you expect?”
I think more women need to know the age of their partner matters to. A man in his 40’s increase your risk of miscarriage by Three times!!!!! It also greatly decreases your percent odds of monthly conception once your man is in his 40’s and really plummets if a man is in his 50’s. For some reason there is this belief that men are not affected by the hands of time reproductively and that is absolutely not true.
Ditto!
@LittleMissNaughty, it isn’t that simple. I, and many of my friends, were absolutely aware of it but didn’t meet our husbands until we were in our early-to-mid 30’s and we all wanted to enjoy even just a little time together, married, before having children. I would have LOVED to have children by the time I was 30 but I wasn’t dating anyone so what was I supposed to do? I can tell you I stressed out about it a lot but I couldn’t snap my fingers and make my dream man appear according to my timeline.
I have friends who are now over 40 and still single with no prospects and they’re devastated that the way they always expected their lives to turn out – well, it just didn’t happen for them. One had the resources to freeze her eggs but I know it is a constant, painful issue for both of them, just as it was for me when I was 36 and still hadn’t met the right person.
It has literally nothing to do with our being ignorant of fertility issues and statistics.
@Lorelai: thank you!!! I’m currently 32 and apparently no likelihood of a guy arriving on the horizon anytime soon (just got dumped by txt message after 4 months – love life has been a series of ghostings for the last several years). I know no woman in their late 20s to early 30s that isn’t completely aware that their fertility starts heading towards the clIff at that age – excepting the ones that know they don’t want kids so they don’t give a #%^*. It’s SO frustrating for what feels like all of society to tell me that I need to settle and should’ve found a guy at uni, stop being so picky, don’t you know your ovaries are shrivelling up and dying this very second?!?!? I’m so aware that my chance of ever being able to have kids is disappearing over the horizon as I type this but I’m not in a financial position where I could afford to be a single mother so sperm donor/adoption is out. My family lives at the other end of the country to me (there is next to no work in the industry I work in on my old hometown where my parents still are). As for a husband? Christ. I can barely find a guy who wants to go on a second date. The txt message dumping i just had? I have to be GRATEFUL for that. Because at least he didn’t ghost me like everyone else had. He let me know. Everyone else who was lucky enough to meet their partner early and wants to tell the rest of us how we’re doing it wrong? Please stop.
I feel very, very lucky to have had first kid at 36 and now second at 42. Conceiving both took a long time and i lost 2 babies along the way. We must talk freely and openly about the risk and about what we’re willing to endure if it doesn’t happen – whether that’s IVF, adoption, etc. If I had it to do over again I would freeze those healthy 25 year old eggs!!
Agree with previous posters, but I do have to throw in a ‘don’t rush into having kids at the wrong time with the wrong guy’ PSA. I honestly wasn’t ready for the emotional, physical, life altering change of having children in my 20s or early to mid 30s. And the losers I was dating….shudder to think what kind of dads they’d be!? 😉
I guess what I’m trying to say is that yes, fertility can be an issue but as with life, you have to do it when you’re ready and not because society or science says so. Fertility issues can happen at ANy age, and while I adore my children, if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t be an empty unhappy person. Conversely, having kids is a lifetime commitment and you’ve gotta be ready. I’ve seen so many people destroy their marriages because of ‘should’ rather than ‘want to.’ There is a difference.
Rant over,
I had my first at 39, the second a week after I turned 47 (surprise!) I was extremely fortunate that I had no problems conceiving and that they were healthy babies.
Maybe a hint that adoption might be the way to go?
Growing up I was told to focus on my career and babies were to be had later in life. In fact , th media made it seem Normal with actresses having kids in their 40s. My doctors never said anything otherwise. I’m 30 yrs old now and found out I had pcos last year. I’m so upset I didn’t search for a partner in my early 20s. I’m single. Freezing eggs is expensive and I don’t know if I want to adopt by myself. Doctors should tell us in our 20s about fertility rates.
I’m 40 and trying to conceive right now. I already have 3 kids, but they were conceived when I was 25, 27, and 30 years old and it was not a problem getting pregnant then. Now I’m remarried and my new husband and I have been trying for a few months, and it’s so hard because I don’t know how fertile I am anymore so I don’t know how much to get my hopes up. I guess there’s nothing to do but wait and see. I don’t know if we’d want to go the route of IVF.
There’s a test for that, really!
Go to your ob!!! They can test hormones, egg reserves, etc super easily with a blood test! Insurance covered, normally. Just a copay for me.
Thank you, I think I will do that!
While I love that we have diverse opinions and perspectives I find it extremely offensive and insenstive for posters here to make the “isn’t this common knowledge” comments. While I agree that we all hear age 30 is when fertility declines, the fact of the matter is that is independent of diseases and conditions that are very insidious never mind not everyone has access to the healthcare necessary to guard their fertility. We are bombarded by messages that we all have to prevent pregnancy without first being armed with the knowledge that some of us may actually have the opposite problem. Not everything can be detected on a bi-annual pap smear; not all women receive non-discriminatory treatment when their legs are on those stirrups; not everyone meets the person they are willing to conceive with at the right moment; not everyone is mentally, financially or emotionally equipped to family plan at a convenient time/age, etc. We need to broadcast these messages and saturate our young women with them so they aren’t under the false impression that fertility is guaranteed.
Well said, Delilah.
Thank you Tiny Martian. I for one am thrilled every time I see any attention brought to this critical issue. The last thing I want is for the very brave women with celebrity who break the silence to be shamed into shutting up about it.
Amen. I love this post so much. I have so many regrets about my life and one of the biggest ones is that I wasn’t a better advocate for myself. I knew in my heart that something was wrong when I was 18. I knew that the pelvic pain I experienced was not “normal.” I knew that I didn’t “just need to relax.” But I was not armed with information! And the Doctors I saw were either not educated or had false information about what was wrong with me. It took years of me pushing myself and being my own health advocate to discover the reproductive health issues I have. I would NEVER have gone through IVF and even been able to get pregnant at all (I did miscarry but I am still grateful that I was pregnant even if it was only for a short time) if it wasn’t for my own advocacy. But this took YEARS of my life and caused me much pain and suffering. This never should have been the way! We need to be arming girls younger with the tools to protect themselves and have all the information. We need to be teaching them about how NOT to get pregnant, yes…but we also need to talk frankly to young women about reproductive health on a broader and more in-depth scale so that they truly understand all the many things that can happen to you throughout your experience as a woman that can impact your ability to have a child. This is extremely important.
I’m so sorry that happened to you Kathleen.
I actually think that fits in well with the very large problem of women’s health issues not being taken seriously in general. There is still a ton of sexism and misogyny in the health field.
I was reading a study where they sent patients into different medical clinics with the same symptoms of a medical condition and I cannot remember the exact stats but it was a shockingly huge number, like 40% thereabouts, but women were 40% more likely to be told their symptoms were from depression then men were (when the test was a genuine medical condition).
I explained that horribly but I”m sure people can google it LOL but basically even in 2017 women are way more likely to be told their symptoms are “all in their head”. Like were seriously still fighting the hysterical woman stereotype even now. It’s heart-breaking.
Kathleen WOW! Just wow. So happy you went with your gut. Others who sense that something is not quite right with voices drowning their own are not always fortunate to stay the course as you did. You are your best advocate. I remember reading a disturbing post on CB where a poster mentioned she was dismissed by her own mother about the extreme pain experienced on her cycle only later to find it was a symptom of the insidious and deleterious infertility culprit—Endometriosis—which plagues our community. I personally experienced mind numbing cramps that rendered me fetal for hours only later to find the same despite a reputable New York physician’s dismissal and misdiagnosis of Mittleswertz—a condition where you feel your ovum…ugh the humanity!
Thank you Delilah! 👏🏻
I agree for the most part but in this particular case I don’t. She started late, she knew she had endo, it took three years for the first pregnancy plus she and her husband no doubt have pretty good financial resources at their disposal. I feel like this woman got a pretty good heads up on how things were going to go.
I appreciate that she’s open about this. Celine Dion was too. So many other celebrities lie about it, as if they have to keep up the appearance that they are just soooo genetically superior to everyone else (which is also why, imho, they lie about plastic surgery too, even when it’s obvious). So I admire the ones who are honest.
I have a friend who went through IVF on and off for years and she finally told me she was going to stop, because the hormones were impacting her ability to work, her temper, her marriage, everything, and they’d already spent the equivalent of college on trying to get pregnant. Then, finally, after ten years of trying, she got pregnant. Her baby is a joy, but it was terrible to watch her go through all of that for so long.
I met my hubby when I was 30 and he was 34. We both had people in our lives and family that struggled with miscarriages and infertility so 6months into the relationship we decided to start trying for a baby because we knew it could take a while. 3 m later I was pregnant.
We were very lucky! The baby is wonderful and we got married before he arrieved.
Sometimes I get sad that I didn’t have the wedding or the long engagement or holidays just the 2 of us, especially when I see engagement announcements on Fb.
But both hubby and baby are great and I have zero regrets.
Glad everything worked out for you. You’re right, you got lucky. It appears you have no fertility struggles even though it was a legitimate fear. Hopefully you and your hubby will experience/cultivate the romance you skipped out on since now the pressure’s off on the baby stuff.
I got married at 38, conceived naturally within two months and had a healthy pregnancy and baby. My husband is younger than me. When we tried again after my daughter was one, I got pregnant easily but miscarried. I’ve had another two miscarriages since that. I guess I was lucky to get that “good egg” but now that I’m over 40, even though I can get pregnant fairly easily, nature has taken its toll on the viability of my eggs. If I’d had fertility trouble first thing, I doubt that would have given me enough time to deal with it.
Now I wish I’d frozen eggs when I was younger and I’d urge anyone in their late twenties or early thirties who knows %100 they want kids to do it, but I only sorta thought I wanted kids back then and it wasn’t a priority. I feel so lucky to have a beautiful child so it eases the losses a little. I wanted to share my story even though it’s late because I know I appreciate reading about others’ sharing their troubles.
My heart goes out to everyone here who has suffered infertility and best of luck to you.
Hi Delilah, I forgot to mention I did have some fears I might not be fertile, because I had several periods of amenoreea in my twenties. Because I took the pill for a long time, everytime I tried to quit it, my period wouldn’t come for months on end. The doctors had no remedy, just keep taking the pill. So when we started trying to have the baby I was worried I won’t be able to conceive. My last period was in January and I got pregnant in March. It was a bit of a miracle baby 🙂