Yeah, maybe the word ‘geriatric’ seems like overkill.
But once you are 35 years old – your pregnancy will be referred to as such! I had my first child at a somewhat mid-range age – twenty-nine. (The nice thing was that it completely overshadowed my turning 30 years old, so no time for a crisis over that!) I sure ‘babied’ myself during that first pregnancy – watched all the shows I liked (on DVD of course, this is pre-Netflix!), ate “for two”, and had about 4 baby showers.
Fast forward to my last pregnancy at 34. Sure, it was a little more tiring having two more little ones to chase around, and it seems like there’s no real special treatment once you’ve already done it a few times and made it look oh so easy, so I didn’t think too much of being technically an “older mom”. Until I went to a routine doctor’s appointment right after my birthday…
Doctor: “So, you’re 34, correct?”
Me: “Oh, I actually had a birthday and turned 35!”
Doctor: SILENCE. She leaves the room and comes back with a number of pamphlets and charts. I’ve crossed some invisible line into GERIATRIC PREGNANCY, where the chances of a number of issues skyrocket and here’s a bunch more tests.
Luckily all was well, but I don’t know if it was the fear of knowing the risks, suddenly having three kids under 6 to manage, or just plain being GERIATRIC that made me suddenly shut down the shop at 35.
Some of my friends had their kids early and are sending them off to university as we turn 40, and some have established themselves and are welcoming a big change into their life in these more mature years. There’s no right way to do it but we would love to hear what you did and what you WISH you’d done. Personally I couldn’t have done anything differently, but in a perfect world would love my kids closer together – and then I might have been able to squeeze one more in!
We had a blast chatting about this on #PulseMornings:
-Jen
#ThatSurreyMom