Model, philanthropist and mother of three, Emina Çunmulaj, was a guest on the "Mam" podcast with Orinda Huta and revealed for the first time that her third child, Shá, is the result of an IVF procedure and that she chose his gender herself.
"The third pregnancy is an abnormal pregnancy. Which means that we had our third son through IVF. It's not normal because, thanks to nature, I had no problem getting pregnant, but since I felt in myself that the third would also be a girl, and the fourth, I said to my husband, 'Shall we try IVF?'" Emina confessed.
She also spoke about her husband's initial doubts and the connection to her faith:
“In America you have the right to choose the gender and the husband was kind of skeptical at first. I am a believer in God. He has given me two healthy children and I didn’t want to mess with something that is against nature. But he [the husband] and I wanted a boy. ‘We have to try IVF one time,’ we said, ‘God willing we will have a boy, if it doesn’t work out we won’t try again.’ And God wanted it to be a boy. IVF for me has been very difficult.”
IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) is a method of assisted reproduction where eggs and sperm are combined outside the woman's body, in a laboratory, and then the resulting embryo is transferred to the uterus to develop the pregnancy. The model also described the difficulties during the process:
"I was very nervous, aggressive towards my husband. Out of 5 embryos, there were 3 girls, 2 boys and only 1 was healthy, which is our son, Shá."
Emina Çunmulaj is also the mother of two daughters, Ella Faria and Mia Soraya, and together with her husband, Iranian-American businessman Sam Nazarian, they experienced this special journey towards their third child, Shá.
