Tag: Advanced Maternal Age

Crazy and Too Old ?

A personal story in The Huffington Post got my attention this morning – LINK>I Never Wanted Children. Then I Got Pregnant With Twins At 53 by Anne Bockman Hansen. The link mentions “advanced maternal age”. I’m totally familiar with that !! I conceived my oldest son at 47 and my youngest son at 50. When we told my dad we were going to try and conceive the older one, he said “I question your sanity.” And I do understand but really we have been fine being older parents. Occasionally, it has been suggested I am my sons “grandmother”. I also have a grown daughter and 2 grandchildren, so I can easily and honestly say, “I understand why you would think that because I AM a grandmother.”

We knew we didn’t want multiples and so, because we had to use assisted reproduction, it was always a possibility. We relied on the experts’ advice on how many embryos to transfer with a good potential for success, without trending into a greater likelihood for twins, and it gave us the single births we preferred. Many of the mothers who cycled along with me at the same time did have twins and even one had triplets – they were all happy with their results and somehow managed the challenges. Glad it was NOT my own challenge. Having a baby and then toddler in one’s life is challenging enough for me !!

Anne Hansen shares – “Still, the thought of having children did not interest me until I was 52 and had taken time away from my job to re-evaluate what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I finally knew that I wanted to do it, the realization hit me with incredible force. I felt certain that I wanted to raise kids — and raise them the way I wished I had been raised. I wanted to bring them up with unconditional love, compassion, a love for learning, a sense of adventure and amazement at the miraculous small things in life.” blogger’s note – Sounds like what happened with my husband after we had been married 10 years.

And even before I had learned all of the issues I share in this blog, I also knew that, as the author says – “. . . I wanted to carry them. I never considered surrogacy or adoption.” and that “I was not ovulating,” plus she shares yet another complication – her 58-year-old husband had a vasectomy in his 30s. blogger’s note – in our case, my husband was able to provide his own sperm and I love seeing how some of his traits have turned up in our sons and that he can be a genetic mirror for them.

Yet, when they saw a reproductive endocrinologist, he told them that sperm could still be retrieved from her husband. Like what happened to me when my husband decided he wanted to have children after all (he had been grateful, I had already done that in my own life, no pressure on him), she was told that she could still get pregnant using an egg donor. For me as well, that was a major breakthrough.

And she mentions the “age related” comments, which I have heard as well. She says – “A member of my church said, ‘A lot of people will think you are selfish for bringing children into this world at your age’.” My perspective is – no one knows how long their parents will continue to be alive while they are maturing – I know many examples where parents died young. Though I remember clearly one day, while checking out groceries, realizing that when my youngest turned 20, I would be 70 – oh my. That day arrived this year.

The same as what the author shares, “My pregnancy was a breeze. I felt the best I had ever felt.” I loved being pregnant. And yes from me too – “the babies were precious and I felt so blessed to have them. The love I had for them was beyond measure.” Ours also changed our lives in so many beautiful ways. Our lives became immensely richer. We have never regretted our decision to become parents, even at our “advanced” ages.

Of course, she had the same experiences that I have had. She shares, “Invariably, everywhere we went, people would think I was their grandmother. Sometimes I corrected them and they were embarrassed and surprised, but many times I just let it go. It didn’t bother me and, incredibly, it didn’t bother the kids. It still doesn’t.”

She follows up at the end with this thought – “I’m now 67 years old with a 73-year-old husband. Despite the difficult and amazing journey we’ve been on — and despite my worries that we could be gone before the twins reach adulthood — I would not have done anything differently. Parents at any age can and do get sick and leave their kids parentless, but not many parents have the free time to devote to their children as we have had and do.”

Confusing An Embryo With a Live Baby

I think a lot of the emotion on the pro-Life side of things comes from misinterpreting an embryo by thinking of a live baby. Our frozens from the medical assistance we received to conceive my oldest son didn’t take when we tried for a second child. We had frozens leftover from our second attempt that did succeed but we knew that we had taken an unacceptable risk with my pregnancy and our son’s well being with that effort (if we had known, we would not have even tried but I am forever grateful that we did). Not wanting to simply dispose of these frozens, we did donate them to a couple trying to conceive. After initially receiving the good news of a pregnancy, that hoped for event subsequently failed to progress. I am still glad that we chose to give these frozens a chance.

For many years, it seemed that we had been lucky with our youngest son as there were no unfortunate effects. Then, around late 2014, I realized that he couldn’t see at a distance very well. An eye exam resulted in glasses. Due to the pandemic, follow-ups with his eye doctor were delayed. In that intervening time, his eyesight worsened significantly and an option that might have been available as a corrective could not be employed due to his now age of 17 (he actually was glad and I was glad for him – he didn’t want to do that one). Now, he does eye drops before sleep to hopefully hold the line on any more regression of his eyesight worsening.

Though my husband had tended to blame my son’s love of computer games and Discord relationships, in researching the issue, that potential cause has never been proven. What has turned up in studies is a statistical effect from gestational diabetes. Due to my age at his conception, a condition that I had only experienced late in the previous pregnancy, emerged as early (or even earlier, unknown to us) as 6 weeks gestation. It took insulin and Metformin both to control it and I still ended up on bedrest for 6 weeks as he was so large my womb could hardly tolerate it and threatened to deliver early.

I have admitted to my son my probable complicity in his condition. He has been very kind about it, acknowledging that I did not intentionally damage him. I do feel responsibility regardless. I share my story because although medical science has made it possible for women of an advanced age to conceive and successfully carry a pregnancy, better to have your children when you are still young enough to do so without extraordinary measures. My son has always felt like my reward – my peacemaker (a story on CD told in song by Joanne Shenandoah that I listened to in the first days of his conception). He is the sweetest son and I am glad he is in our lives.