Message ID: 2j0ec5Fs68frU1@uni-berlin.de
How old is "too old" to become a mother? I'm in my mid-40s, married three years to a man 12 years older, a second marriage for both. He has grown children.
My doctor suggested a certain treatment, saying I'll likely be able to bear a child. My husband was reluctant but agreed after realizing how much I want it. Now I'm seized with near-terror. I'll be eligible for a pension when the child is ready for college. While I'd consider adopting an older child, he won't. I fear we'll find it difficult to raise a child at our ages.
I feel guilty I may be depriving my husband of a fun-filled retirement and saddling him with this responsibility. I worry that the child may resent having "old bats" for parents. Some girlfriends (mothers of teenagers) tell me I'm nuts, to accept my childless state and wait for step-grandchildren to come along. Others tell me to go for it. I feel paralysed by fear and confused by my belated ambivalence. Any thoughts to help me sort this out?
- NO TIME TO WASTE
DEAR NO TIME:
I agree with you that the responsibility of parenthood and what's best for a child have to be considered as much as your desire. Research the treatment: Unless it involves in vitro fertilization (IVF) in which you're getting a donor egg from a younger woman, the risk of birth defects greatly increase after 40 (e.g., 1 in 100 risk of Down syndrome; at 45, 1 in 30).
On the emotional side, I've known women who've given birth to a first healthy child at 40, and their joy was indescribable. They were certainly more mature parents than I was at 23, though they had to deal with greater fatigue and the difficulty of finding other similar-age parents. Also, both the husbands and wives were equally eager. And there wasn't a large age spread between them.
Your husband is great to have agreed, yet I suspect some of your hesitation comes from thinking he felt pushed to do so. When asked about older pregnancy, Northwestern Memorial Hospital obstetrician Dr. Lauren Streicher says she usually suggests meeting with a counselor, "to figure out the couple's expectations of parenthood and to determine if the reality will even come close to matching their fantasy."
My esteemed counterpart has already given you many valid points to ponder, and so I will add my own 2 cents worth.
Yes, the probability of your ova having reached and passed their "best before" date increases exponentially in your forties. However, fertility treatments such as in-vitro fertilization using the ova of a younger woman is not necessarily the answer. An often ignored fact is that the children produced by these extreme means is that the probability of the child having some sort of disability is greatly increased here as well. Do want to take that risk? Or rather, are you selfish enough to want to put any potential child you may have at that risk? Remember, once the kid is here, you can't send it back.
Of the friends you have consulted over this, I would give more weight to the parents of teenagers who advise you not to consider this. The fact is, No Time, you are no spring chicken - you don't have the energy you had 20 years ago. As a friend of mine who became a mother at 40 said, "If I had realized just how much energy this would take, though I love my son, I would never have done this. I am perpetually exhausted." Contrary to the images the media projects of celebrities in their 40's (and now 50's - shudder) "blossoming into motherhood", those images have very little to do with the realities the average woman would face. Celebs have much more in the way of material resources to draw on - they can afford the hot and cold running nannies that do much of the grunt work involved with childcare. Most of us don't have the luxury of the kid only appearing bathed, dressed and primped for the next photo-op.
Now for your husband. I suspect, as Ellie does and you do, that your husband probably is decidedly lukewarm about parenting at his age. He has raised his kids. He probably does not want to raise more, but will go along with it for you. Sorry, that does not good parenting material make. Not to mention the expense of fertility treatments that can put his dreams of a fun-filled retirement permanently on hold.
Fact is, No Time, we can't have it all. No one can. You are in your mid forties, your husband in his mid-50's. Having a child at both your ages, is selfish and narcissistic. Celebrate what you have.
Childfree Abby
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