'Real Housewives of Dubai' star Caroline Stanbury reveals that she and her husband, Sergio Carrallo, are searching for a surrogate.
Caroline Stanbury is getting real about what it's like trying for another baby at her age.
In a personal essay for TODAY, the Real Housewives of Dubai star, 48, shares her desire to have a fourth child and first with her 29-year-old husband, Sergio Carrallo.
Stanbury shares three children – daughter Yasmine, 18, and twin sons Zack and Aaron, 14 – with her ex-husband, Cem Habib. When she tied the knot with Carrallo in December 2021, she assumed he'd probably want to start a family of his own. But she's not positive she can get pregnant.
"We've already done two rounds of in vitro fertilization," Stanbury says of starting the IVF process in 2022. "Even though we got 15 eggs the first round and another 15 or 20 the second round, we only ended up with one viable embryo. So we have a little baby boy on ice, waiting for us."
Stanbury says Carrallo wants their baby to biologically belong to both of them, so using someone else's eggs isn't an option.
"Knowing that there's one embryo is exciting, but it's also worrisome for Sergio," she says. "He's thinking he'd like to do another round of IVF in January next year and try for another embryo or two."
But the Bravo reality star is hesitant to do treatments again and shares regrets being so public about their fertility problems.
"It's a lot of pressure to have the whole world know our reproductive issues," she admits.
She then explains why she believes she can't get pregnant.
"Unfortunately I probably can't carry another child myself. I had preeclampsia with all my children, and I got very sick with the twins," she says. "My children are against me carrying a baby because of the health risks for me."
Pregnancy is still up in the air for Stanbury.
"But right now, I'm undecided," she says. "My doctor thinks that I may be able to carry one more child, however, and I also feel the healthiest I've ever been. So never say never."
Even though it's something she never imagined for herself and still has "a million questions" about, Stanbury reveals that she and her husband are "looking for a surrogate."
"Surrogacy was illegal here in Dubai until just a few months ago," she says. "After surrogacy was legalized, I called the IVF clinic and they gave me two names of surrogacy agencies. I'm due to have a consultation, which I put off until after summer."
She adds, "Moving forward with having another baby is a difficult decision at my age. It's definitely something we go back and forth about a lot."
Although there are still a lot of uncertainties for Stanbury, she's positive about one thing: "Sergio will be a great dad, and he deserves to be a father."
No matter what happens, Stanbury is happy to have at least inspired other women on her fertility journey.
"The one thing Sergio and I have given everybody is hope," she says. "I'm showing women that they can go on and start a whole new life—perhaps literally—at 48."
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