I know someone who was declared infertile… she gave up on becoming a mother and was not using BC. Then at the ripe age of 50, something happened. She got pregnant and delivered a healthy baby! Her husband was overjoyed!!
I found this article very thought-provoking. I hope the author used aliases because I can’t imagine being the kid whose mother’s reaction to my entry into the world was so publicly ambivalent. And the honest admission that my parents barely knew one another and had no commitment to one another.
Or the kid can look at it as my birth was such a miracle - I defied all odds.
If you have post-partum depression, do you never tell your kids so they don’t think that their entry into the world caused you to be depressed?
The kid will always know that their creation was not typical - parents are old and siblings old enough to be their parents.
@dragonmom Lots of people know their birth was unplanned. I was my parent’s third child in 32 months, pretty sure that wasn’t hoped for.
How about a pregnancy more than ten years after a presumably successful tubal ligation? Her presumed abdominal tumor in her early to mid 40s turned out to be a baby!
It’s good that the woman is happy with her situation. It certainly sounds like she was surprised.
I knew a number of kids growing up whose parents were quite old. I think that the availability of birth control changed that. You young pups may not remember those days, but in my neck of the suburbs, there were lots of kids whose older siblings were pretty sure they were oops babies. It may be hard to remember that far back, but there was a time I can vividly recall when effective, available birth control was not a thing. I would not want to return to those days!
My husband was born when his parents were 40, his sisters are 7 and 10 years older, pretty sure not planned! My twins were #4 and #5, my youngest was 1 when they were born, they know they are our bonus babies. Our first wasn’t planned either, we had been married 5 months (but dated for 5 years, met at age 12) when I got pregnant. My mom’s reaction was “so, are we happy about this?”
I read somewhere once that more than 50% of babies born in the US are unplanned, so really that’s not all that surprising.
My best friend from childhood had identical twins at 45yrs old, completely unplanned, and I have another friend who had her third child at 46yrs old, she was a girl or my friend was going to name her after the doctor who performed her husband’s vasectomy. All three children are cherished and the parents seems to enjoy the teasing about their oops kids.
And yet, here we are.
I have a friend who had some treatments and had a healthy baby at 50–her only child. She and her H were overjoyed!
My H was an older dad. He was 45 when S was born and 47 when D was born. It worked just fine. Yes, we got tired, maybe a bit faster than younger parents, but we were comfortable in our careers and able to travel with them and let me stay home with them for several years.
My HS boyfriend’s mom was 56 when she had him. All his siblings were at least 15 years older so he truly was an “only child”. He lamented that “all I wanted to do was play ball with my dad and it just didn’t happen.” His dad did try but he wasn’t exactly spry at the time.
He didn’t really know his siblings at all–they were out of the house and had careers etc.
So part of HS was him actually MEETING his siblings who were scattered across the country.
From my perspective…his parents were absolutely the youngest “old” people I have ever met in my entire life. They were funny, patient, “with it”, forgiving. Always good advice.
I know it was difficult for him because they died too soon while he was younger (though grown) but he also had a unique experience of having such seasoned veteran parents.
A friend, the mother of three boys and happily married, thought she was pregnant at 45 yo. Her boys were all school aged, the youngest a first grader, and she felt that her life had become easier after the chaos of young children. After the initial shock she was delighted. Maybe a girl? Her husband was not pleased and pressured her to have an abortion. He was relieved that those crazy, hard days of raising young children were over, and he did not want to go back. His reaction made her sad and upset. She was wrestling with how to deal with his feelings and go on with the pregnancy when she suffered a miscarriage at about thirteen weeks.
I will confess I was open to having more children until about age 42. We have two. I wanted three or four. H did not like the chaos of young children and had some health problems, so I did not try to get pregnant in my late thirties. (I did not have fertility issues and did not mind the chaos.) At about 42, the balance between my desire for more kids and my pleasure in an easier life with older kids shifted. I did not want to start over with babies. Of course, when I was about 45, H looked around, saw how kids grew up and became easier, our kids were 13 and 11, and asked if we should have one more. Two was not enough, and he missed those tiny terrors after all. I said no, not with this wife.
Or the oldest D had a baby that the 56y/o mom/grandmom raised as another sibling.
Nope!
When my kids were in high school, they each had a classmate with an infant sibling. One mother was a teen mother, married the father, and had one other before the one 16ish years later. No clue if it was planned, but they seemed happy.
The other had 3 girls with some spacing in age when mom was pregnant; the oldest was 17. As far as I know, while they were trying, they weren’t not trying. My daughter and friends loved having a little one to interact with, and their was no shortage of babysitters for this little one!
My mother is the oldest of her family. The second child died when he was 2 1/2, so my grandmother waited a while before having my aunt, who is 12 years younger than my mother. My uncle came along 3 years later when grandma was 38, so not like she was old, but during that time, might have been consider old.
My dear friend always seemed to resent having older parents. She felt like they didn’t do what other parents did, and she was having to care for them while having 3 little ones herself. Her mom was 38, her dad was 40! 
The definition of “older parents” has changed somewhat. A cousin of mine is my age although she is actually my dad’s first cousin. Dad’s aunt was 40 when cousin was born, which in the late 1950’s was considered an “old mom”.
I had my second child at 39 and it was NBD.
The centenarian study found that if you’ve had a baby over the age of 40 (w/o fertility treatments) you are three times more likely to live to 100.
lol where I live if you start having kids before your late 20’s, you are considered a young mom. With 5 kids going through the public school system, I’ve only heard about one teen pregnancy, and she was 18.
Well, then I’m glad I stopped at 32. I am just returning home from a week with my 97 year old MIL, and I have no interest in living to 100!