CCTV9英语新闻：60岁老太生双胞胎（在线收听）

In 2010, a sixty-year-old woman in south China’s Anhui Province gave birth to twin daughters, after losing her adult only daughter a year earlier. Sheng Hailin was just one of the million heartbroken parents who have lost their only, adult child. She was able to become a mother again with the help of in-vitro fertilization. Her family is now a focus of the media, after the country announced it will relax the one-child family planning policy.

In 2010, a sixty-year-old woman in south China’s Anhui Province gave birth to twin daughters, after losing her adult only daughter a year earlier.

63-year-old Sheng Hailin, with her twin daughters and husband, has been busy travelling around the country giving interviews. Back in the 1980s, Sheng and her husband firmly obeyed the country’s one-child policy after her first daughter was born. But in 2009, her daughter, then 28 years old, along with her son-in-law died of a gas poisoning accident. It devastated Sheng and her husband.

Sheng couldn’t bear the pain of the loss. So she went against all odds to get pregnant again using test-tube technology at the age of 60. The country’s new family planning policy was close to her heart.
 

Raising the twins is not an easy job. It costs a great deal of money and effort. Sheng says the country still has no policy to support families like hers. Despite their pensions, Sheng has to earn extra by giving commercial talks across the country. Although she feels tired, she says the girls are her hopes and dreams, and she will give everything to provide them with a better life.
 

It’s been thirty years since China implemented the family planning policy, during which time about a million families have lost their only child. When we applaud the latest family planning laws, it’s also high time that we give our attention to these bereft families who suffered loss under the one-child policy.