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Fellow mother in her sixties Rosanna Della Corte offers advice to Patricia Rashbrook, who gave birth at 62 last month to a son in the UK

I was delighted to hear that your baby had arrived. Like me, you have had a little boy. And, like me, you have defied your critics. By all accounts the birth last Wednesday - by elective caesarean – went smoothly and you and little JJ are safe. Well done for breast– feeding.

My son Riccardo will celebrate his 12th birthday on July 18, and I wish you could see what a good-looking and clever boy he is. The other day he brought me his school report which is so good I’d like to put it up on the wall. To be frank, I have to say that if I were in your shoes I wouldn’t have tried to have a child at your age. You already have three children by your first marriage and I believe that generally mothers are beautiful because they are young.

You might think it’s strange for me to say that. But the only reason I had a child by IVF when I was 62 – the same as you now – was that my first son, also called Riccardo, died in a scooter accident when he was 17.

I was so happy with big Riccardo: I did so many things with him. We’d go to the sea or to the swimming pool together all the time. I drove him around every where. He’d be 32 this year.

I was very fragile after he died. I went round all the orphanages with my then husband Mauro, who is a farmer, but they all refused to give me a child. They told me that at my age I should be a grandmother, not a mother. But I knew I was healthy enough and strong enough to have a child.

The people who criticize mothers of our age don’t know what the love of a baby means. It’s not as if you’re killing a child; what you’re doing is giving life to one.

I’ve received lots of letters, beautiful ones, from people who say I did the right thing. When I go to Rome, people recognise me in the street and sometimes they come up and kiss me.

I have kept a close eye on little Ricardo. I go to see his teachers at school every two weeks because I want to know how things are going. When he goes out to play football in the evening I often go to see what he’s up to. Sometimes he asks me what I’m doing there; I just tell him I’m out for a walk.

I have no regrets, but I do have one fear: that something might happen to me and I end up leaving him alone. I have already arranged that he would be brought up by my cousin Nelli, who is a wonderful person and has a lovely family. But children need their mother to grow, like wheat needs the sun. If there was no sun, the wheat wouldn’t grow.

I haven’t yet told little Riccardo how special his birth was; I’ll tell him when he’s a teenager. Once, when he was seven, he asked me why I was old when his friend Filippo had a mother who was much younger. I told him I was young when I had big Riccardo but that, after he died, I died a little bit day after day. Then God said that was enough crying and he sent an angel to bring you to me, I said to him.

The sadness of losing my first Riccardo has never left me. I still go to the cemetery every day. I have two sons one is alive and one is dead.

Wishing you the very best,
Rosanna
(The Sunday Times, UK)