Motherhood, take two
Chasing toddlers helps 40-something parents to stay young
By Tracey Ellis
When my second husband-to-be asked about having a baby, my reaction was, "Are you nuts?" There was no way I was having another baby--I was almost 40. I had a 17-year-old daughter. I was way, way too old to be chasing babies again. And at my age, wasn't it nearly impossible to have another baby? Now there was a thought....
Offhandedly I said, "Well, if you want to be the one to stay home and raise it, sure," all the while certain that I was just too old to have another baby. To my surprise, my husband-to-be agreed. So a deal was struck. But what were the chances I could even conceive?
One month after our wedding, I found out I was pregnant. Wow! Just like that, I thought.
I am not alone.
A 2004 report by Statistics Canada published in 2006 confirmed the worldwide trend toward late motherhood. The average birth age of women in Canada was 29.7 years. The bulk of births in Canada now occur in women aged 25 to 34 (62.1 per cent), and births to mothers aged 35 and older were four times more frequent than a generation earlier, accounting for 17.2 per cent of births in 2004. In Italy, five of every 100 babies are born to a woman older than 40. In New Zealand and Australia, the average age of a first-time mother is 30.7. In the United States, the birth rate for women aged 30 to 44 is the highest it has been in 30 years. In the United Kingdom in 2009 there were 26,976 births to women over 40.
Nothing makes you feel younger than finding out you're pregnant.
Strangely, the feeling of fear mixed with elation was the same as I felt nearly 18 years previously when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. But this time I knew what I was in for: morning sickness, multiple night-time trips to the loo and swollen ankles. What I didn't know I was in for were the tests: multiple ultrasounds, triple-screen testing and nuchal transparency testing for Down Syndrome. After all, I was told, my eggs were nearly 40. I opted out of amniocentesis. Soon, we were given the all clear. I reluctantly shopped for maternity clothes and delighted in buying baby things. The birth of our son, Othello was uneventful. With husband and teenage daughter present, Othello made his entrance into the world. My daughter later said seeing her little brother born was the greatest "birth control talk" she could have been given. I was hoping for a little more sisterly love than that.
Just to prove our childbirth experience wasn't a fluke, we tried it again and had Horatio (otherwise known as Number-Two son) 18 months after Othello's birth. The doctor had advised me not to wait if we wanted another, but even he was surprised to find me waiting in his office just over nine months after Othello was born. I reminded him that he had advised us not to wait, to which he replied, "I meant a couple of years!"
Nothing makes you feel old like chasing around two toddlers.
Now two-and-a-half years old and 16 months, our boys alternate between being little angels and little terrors.
The boys' destructive power is amazing individually, but together, they can wreak havoc like a tornado. When Horatio isn't in the toilet "splishy-splashing" as we call it, having earned himself the nickname of Mr. Splishy, he's in the garbage foraging for anything edible or even inedible he can find and stuff into his mouth. Othello is nearing three, and we are immersed in the joys of potty training, which currently consists of me asking him if he wants to use the potty and him chiming, "NOPE!" And all the funny stories I have at social engagements pretty much revolve around poo, and as I have found out, are not suitable for mixed company.
The boys have the art of divide and conquer down to a fine art, and as they are so close in age, their sense of right and wrong has not developed to the point that one can talk the other out of what they intend to do. So they are partners in crime. Too young to be punished, or even given a time out, they spend their days weaving a magical web of love and laughter, surprise and dismay, into our lives. We dance in the living room and play in the mud together, explore the parks, beaches and lakes of Powell River and take in all the child-friendly amenities Powell River has to offer.
And when they finally sleep, we find ourselves admiring the wonder that is babies, just like any parents of any age do when faced with such an amazing reflection of themselves.
