My story began in 1987 when I had my first son. He is now 17 years old. For 16 years I tried to have a second baby, but it was impossible. I visited many doctors and tried a lot of treatment, but without success. I had 17 missed abortions after 9 weeks. All the tests were good. In 2002 I had a successful pregnancy, with a new treatment of a heparin injection for each day of pregnancy. On 31/12/2002 Ori was born in Benison Hospital in Israel, weighing 2.5 kg. All the Israeli papers tried to write about it, but my husband did not give them permission, even for the $20000 they offered.
Now I am 42 years old and have just given birth to my second girl after treatment of heparin injections.
This is my story.
Ziva
Posted 18 January 2005
Linda, 50, Lancaster, CA, US (Updated 17 November 2007)
I am now 50 years old. My son, Richard is 3 1/2 - he will be 4 years old at the end of January 2008. He is still so much fun and we enjoy him very much.
Original posting:
Linda, 47, Lancaster CA, US
I have a 21 year old daughter and a 18 year old son from my first marrige. I remarried almost 3 years ago to a man who is 6 years younger who never had children. I was 44 when we tried to conceive. I was told after 1 year of trying that my ovaries were dead and that my chances were 1 in a million to conceive. Two months later, I conceived naturally. My pregnancy went well and, at 46, I gave birth to a healthy boy, 2 weeks early - 9 lbs. 12 oz. He is normal and healthy in every way. He just turned a year old last month.
Many people thought I was crazy at first to be willing to start over but my son has been an absolute joy. Since then, one of my friends who is 43 just had a baby (it was a surprise) and everything went well for her also. When I was in the hospital, I asked the nurse if it was unusual for a woman in her 40's to have a child. She said that it is very common now especially with people remarrying.
Also, I thought that my older children would be indifferent to having a younger sibling. In fact, they absolutely adore him and spend alot of time with him. Needless to say that my husband is very happy also. I have found that I savor every moment with my son. I am enjoying him thoroughly - much more than I did with my older two since I was so busy and worried about doing everything right. He is an absolute joy!
Hi, I am 47 years old, my husband is 50 and in July I gave birth to a beautiful son. My husband and I met each other quite late in life and thought children would not come for us. Neither of us had been married before or had children.
Still 2 years ago we decided to give it a try but actually never thought seriously about it, until I found out I was pregnant. I was seeing a great doctor, who encouraged me and gave me faith all the way through the pregnancy. Everything went fine and our son is such a beautiful present.
We don't feel old at all, on the contrary we feel younger every day !!
Posted 23 August 2005
Pip, 50, UK
I married my first husband at 27 and we were both enjoying life too much to think of having children at first. By the time I started feeling that the time was right, our marriage was breaking down. After 7 years we were divorced and then I spent 5 years on my own. By this time I was 39 and had all but resigned myself to being childless.
I re-connected with Richard, a work colleague of my ex husbands, in 1998 and we were married in 1994. We both desperately wanted children so we were overjoyed when I fell pregnant at the end of 94.
Of course, because of my 'age', we had to go through loads of test but luckily they all came back positive. I had a dream pregnancy and in the August of of' 95, two weeks late and after induction, we produced our gorgeous girl Alexandra by emergency caesarean. In the months following her birth, I have to say I felt angry that I had almost been forced into induction. My heart tells me that she and I were perfectly healthy and she would have arrived in her own good time, had they not intervened.
We decided that even though I was pretty 'old' by then and against the advice of our doctor that we wanted a brother or sister for Alex.
Unfortunately our next pregnancy ended with a miscarriage at 11 weeks. A truly traumatic time.
Eventually I became pregnant again but because of my age and because of the caesarean, I was monitored closely. My blood test came back as high risk and we were forced into making a decision about amniocenteses. I can honestly say it was the worst decision of my life. The thought that I was invading this precious child’s space and that I could very easily abort a perfectly healthy child was appalling. I was also advised to have a cesarean because of my age and my experience with Alex.
However, everything went fine and in the June of 98, aged nearly 43, we produced beautiful Helen - one week early and naturally.
I recently heard a report on the TV regarding the dangers for older women having children. Once again the 'men' in suits are trying to dictate to women, who know their own bodies and minds perfectly well. Each woman is an individual and, providing she is healthy, the decision whether to have a child or not - AT ANY AGE - should be hers and her partners decision alone.
My two precious daughters are testament to mine and Richard’s love and continue to keep my young in body and spirit.
Caroline, 47, UK
This is an story about a positive birth experience in that I have a beautiful, healthy girl (she is actually now 5-years-old but I have only just discovered your site), but really a cautionary tale about the attitudes other older mothers might encounter among medical professionals.
To shorten a long and complicated story, I was due to give birth at 42-years-old with my second child (my first, a boy, was born when I was 38), and had arranged a home birth with the full support of my excellent GP. Staff at my hospital maternity unit barged in at the last minute on some pretext and told me I needed to stay at the hospital. They refused to contact my GP and said my midwife was too busy to give me advice.
What really drove home the ageism of their attitude was my conversation with another mother after the birth. She was 28-years-old (a good age to have a baby, I'm sure was their assumption), but had originally been scheduled to have a caesarean as she had suffered a brain haemorrhage at three months’ pregnant and it was thought this might affect her ability to push, but this was later cancelled. She had also had gestational diabetes for the second time (this was her third baby), and this had left her permanently diabetic after the birth.
Actually I had had diabetes during my pregnancy with my son, but had taken lots of advice and managed to defeat it for the birth of my daughter. However, hospital staff seemed unable to let go of the fact that I must have been too old and knackered and had really no business having a baby at my age anyway. In my opinion, neither the 28-year-old nor I received adequate care from the hospital as we both had difficult births.
I complained through the usual channels and sought legal advice about suing the hospital for the trauma I felt they had caused me at the time through their unnecessary intervention, but eventually gave up as it became too complicated and long-drawn-out.
Obviously your body will be different when you are over 40 from when you were in your twenties, but women who have always been sensible about their health, and who often look after themselves well during their pregnancies, are in a good position to mitigate the effects of ageing.
