Message ID: bhg2ki$c4m2$1@ID-202214.news.uni-berlin.de
Next week my husband and I will move both of our daughters (ages 18 and 19) into their respective college dorms. They are both nice, normal, well-adjusted girls eager to start school, and I am thrilled for them both.
Lately, however, I have been thinking a lot about starting over and having another baby! I am an extremely fit and healthy 47-year-old, and I don't smoke, rarely drink and exercise regularly. My husband, who is 53, is less physically active but in general good health. He looked at me in complete amazement when I suggested the idea, but he didn't exactly say no.
Is this a reaction to suddenly facing the "empty nest"? I am a high school teacher, and my husband runs his own business, so we both have lots of job flexibility and better salaries than when we had our first two children. I would like to try again. Am I too old? Am I crazy to even contemplate the idea?
-- Wondering
Well, there's bad-crazy and good-crazy. You might be good-crazy.
You sound like a terrific parent who has enjoyed motherhood, so I can see why you would like to keep doing it. As a schoolteacher, I'm sure you've calculated that you would be pushing 70 when this child left the nest. Medically, it isn't impossible, though as I'm sure you know there are increased risks to you and any baby you might have after age 40 or so.
I would urge you and your husband to take at least three months after the girls leave to carefully consider this, because I hope you realize that having a baby doesn't solve anything -- it doesn't make you younger or less lonesome for your other kids. A baby brings its own universe of issues into your life.
As you're thinking, please explore other parenting ideas such as fostering children in your home. Clearly, you have a lot to give.
As someone who, at 46, can be considered one of your peers, allow me to ask:
JUMPED UP JAYSUS ON TOAST POINTS, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?
Of course your husband didn't say anything - he was probably in shock.
Let us examine this in detail - you are 47 years old and approaching menopause. The probability of you conceiving at your age are rather slim, but if you should manage it, bear in mind your ova are 47 years old too, and there is a "best before date" on them you know. The probability of your child being born with Downs Syndrome rise exponentially at your age. While you may be in good health and exercise regularly - you don't have the energy you had when you were 20, and have you forgotten about sleep deprivation that goes along with a newborn/toddler?
You are 47 years old - should you have this kid, you will be pushing 70 before the kid leaves home. How do you think the kid will feel with a mother who is close to 60 by the time he is 10 years old?
Then there is your husband. By the time the kid leaves home, he will be getting close to 75, do you think he really wants to spend his retirement raising another kid? Have you even considered that now that your children are more or less on their own that he might have been looking forward to the two of you having some time to yourselves now? That he might have been looking forward to spending time alone with you? Have you considered his feelings at all in this? You seem to have taken his stunned silence for something far more affirmative than it is.
What about your retirement anyway? Or do you want to blow that on fertility treatments? That will run you $100,000 or so. And that's before what is needed to raise/educate it.
You really had better take a look at yourself to figure out why you can't seem to be able to define yourself with out the label of "someone's mommy".
ChildFree Abby