by Myg on August 21, 2009
Bing and Doot, my darlings,
You’ve been on the outside for seven whole months now, which is nearly as long as you were on the inside. So if you think of it, from zygote to now you’ve probably gagoopled your size several times, not to mention your cute factor. To be honest, I’d really love to credit myself with your good looks, but I don’t know how anyone could buy it. I think I’ll attribute some to your father, some to the innate bias inherent in parenting, and some to science.
Your excellent dispositions, however? All me.
Okay, maybe not ALL me. But a lot me. Or so I like to tell your family, friends and assorted admirers.
As of this week I’ve started to work a little more often, a little harder, outside of the house making some money to keep us all in diapers and dog biscuits. I won’t kid around, it’s been a strange thing to spend fewer hours a day with you. The strangest thing being that I leave you in the morning, am gone for many hours, come home for dinner and baths and you are both different. You are more here. More you. Less mommy appendage.
In some ways this breaks me. In most ways, this is simply the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.
People who see pictures of you ask me, “Are they total opposites in their personalities?” I don’t know why they’d ask such a thing.
To that I unilaterally answer No. What you are is individuals, close in temperament to myself and your father. I am hoping that since he and I have been compatible for oh, the last 22 years or so, that the two of you will get on similarly well, and perhaps with less bickering over guitar gear, but probably not.
Which brings me to some news. Your father and I have been asked to put the band back together for a special show celebrating the mid-90s music scene in New Brunswick. We, of course, jumped at the opportunity. Why? Because we are totally f*cking INSANE. Insane for sound, insanely eager for any opportunity to have our asses kicked (as your simultaneous appearance into our lives proves) and insanely committed to raising you both to never, ever forsake your dreams or those things that make you who you are.
Mom and Dad bring the rock, 10 years ago
I have done a little too much of that lately, but it’s about to change.
Unfortunately, that means you’ll be having more babysitting. The good news? It’ll probably be your grandparents who will likely let you stay up late and eat ice cream behind our backs. Good for them.
At this point, I feel inclined to include some kind of poignant hand wringing about how fast it’s all going, how much I already miss those tiny helpless newborns you used to be, how precious every second with you is and has been, how my love for you seems to outpace the expansion of the universe and can hardly be contained by human physiology or explained in human language.
Sure, I can go there.
But my darlings, it’s 5pm Friday and instead, I think I’d like to rush home for dinner and bath time, where I can be in it instead of just describing it.
May we spend the rest of our days together more inside the good feeling than outside, remembering how good it was.
All my love forever and ever,
Mama
This is a blog with a mission, being, to take some of the GAHfuckdamnohnoisthisokay? out of becoming a mom when you’re over 35, or in my case now, over 40. I had infertility issues that kept me from getting pregnant when I was younger, and I was one of those hand wringers who would Google “pregnant over 35″ and just be dejected with the search results. Hardly anyone has anything good to say on the matter, or encouraging, or even maybe celebrating women who start their families later. It was all risk and warnings and that shit is just depressing.
But that’s not to say it isn’t real. Indeed, pregnancy for me was nearly every bit as hard and scary as they say it can be for women my age, especially bearing twins. I had pre-term contractions, pre-eclampsia, borderline anemia, a very tough delivery (which had nothing to do with my age, ahem). What they don’t tell you is, so fucking what?
See, I’m trying to cultivate a new and improved attitude about risk. Now that I’ve taken certain risks and have gotten a certain unbelievably awesome payoff, I’m here to say that if your heart truly longs for a baby and you’re over 35, go on and get pregnant. DO IT. I could have had a worse result, yes. But you know what? I didn’t, and most women my age having babies don’t either. And look what I got to show for it:
Two beautiful kids, born totally healthy.
So here’s the whole truth about my over 39 year old twin-pregnancy experience. First, the bad.
- My pregnancy was great until the third trimester, when my back started to hurt so bad I could hardly walk from my car to the house without pain, and when pre-term contractions and then pre-eclampsia kicked in. That period of time involved total bedrest, three hospitalizations and a lot of unfortunate Google searches.
- Being pregnant with twins caused more of that than my age. That said, women over 35 have a greater chance of multiple pregnancy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is harder.
- I delivered five weeks early, due to pre-eclampsia. My delivery was tough, tough, tough. I delivered Doot vaginally and had to have an emergency C-Section for Bing. That had nothing to do with my age, or the pre-eclampsia. He had cord pro-lapse, which can be catastrophic. We were thankfully in good hands. If you’re a high-risk pregnancy, make sure you are too.
- Speaking of high-risk pregnancy, if you get labeled this know it’s a blessing. You get much better prenatal care.
- My recovery from delivery took awhile, and to be honest I thought I’d never feel right again. I was wrong, and knew it within about four weeks. Two weeks after giving birth I was much, much better. By a month, I was back to normal except for my weight and my tendonitis.
- Oh, by the way, did you know you can get mindbendingly painful tendonitis in both wrists while pregnant, just from your hormones? I didn’t, and believe me, this was the most painful and inconvenient part of being pregnant and a new mother – worse than the sleep deprivation. No, there’s not much you can do for it but wait it out. It’s much better now at the five month mark, but it’s not gone.
- Not a day goes by where I don’t do the math. When they’re 18 I’ll be 58. When they’re 25 I’ll be 65. When they’re 30 I’ll be 70. And so on. Every day I worry about being too old. Not now, of course. I feel young now. I daresay I look young, even younger than I am. But I don’t take terribly great care of myself and that has to change so I can age well and enjoy my kids well into their adult years. I don’t want them to have the worries of caring for older parents, well, ever. But then, I don’t want to die on them when they’re too young. And then, what’s too young? I’ll never, ever, ever be ready to let my parents go. In any case, I don’t get to decide any of these things, and so they are not worth the worry. But I must tell you, I worry anyway.
Now for the good stuff that waiting got me, and may get you too.
- Some things that would have really rattled my 30 year old self really don’t rattle me now. I have been called a very calm, confident parent, and I have to admit that I am.
- I don’t ever wish I was out doing something else that I can’t do now because I have small kids. At my age, I’ve really spent a lot of time doing exactly what I wanted. I’m not worried about my career because it’s so well established I can pretty much write my ticket now.
- Even though the economy is bad and money is tough, I know I can always make money if need be (see above).
- My kids live in a nice home, in a great neighborhood with an excellent school district.
- In my neighborhood, many, if not most of my friends are mothers and fathers who started their families after the age of 35 or at least continue to have kids over the age of 35.
- I savor every moment I have with them, even at 3am, because at 40 I really know how fast it’s all going to go. I just didn’t have that perspective yet when I was 30.
In every other way except trying to lose weight, being 40 pretty much kicks ass. My head is clear. I feel powerful. I don’t take shit from anyone. I know what’s important. I thoroughly enjoy everything I have. So really, in that sense, it’s the perfect time in my life to bring my kids into the world.
Not because of the economy or the war or the environment or any external thing. It’s a good time because it’s the time it was possible, and really, it’s as good as any and better than some.
The author, born in 1969, but shown here somewhere around late 1970.
This is going to be quick as 1. it’s Friday and who the hell reads blogs on Fridays? 2. my sinuses are frakkkkkin killing me for some reason today. Could it please just rain already? and 3. I really need to do some work. The kind I get paid to actually do.
So I had the big meeting with my boss yesterday afternoon, and it went great.
I explained our situation – that Alex is trying to get a position for the fall, and if he gets it, I intend to quit and be home with the kids as the cost of daycare for two babies is astronomical. I’ve since learned that I may be able to hire a nanny to stay with the boys for less money, which is an option I’ll keep in mind. Though I don’t know how easy it is to find part-time nannies who can work different days of the week, as my work schedule has to remain fairly flexible. And I haven’t quite figured out a system to screen out the trick-turning, crack dealing, booze stealing, child beating freelance child care workers.
Nothing against the vast majority freelance child care workers, though. And obviously, hiring in-home child care is a great solution that works for lots of families.
So when I explained all of this to my boss, she was more than understanding. If anything, I think it relieved her of the stress of trying to find new funding to keep me employed. At the same time, she indicated she wanted to keep me connected to the University – she didn’t want to lose me.
I have to tell you, that made me feel really, really good.
She also was worried about what would happen to us if Alex couldn’t find a position, particularly our health insurance. Isn’t that crazy? Like someone in an employer position would worry about us as a family?
So she rattled off a bunch of possible opportunities with the department that may be coming up in the fall. I reassured her I had a back up plan, and that by mid-summer we’d have a better idea of how Alex’s job hunt was going and whether we’d need to revisit our current strategy. She said “good” and gave me a look that said, okay I won’t worry about it until then, but at that point, I’m going to worry about it again.
She’s a good boss. Really, the best kind.
I feel good today except OMFG MY SINUSES.
This wasn’t short, like I promised.
It never is.
So, the meeting with my boss where I was going resign was pushed back to 2:30pm.
This shouldn’t be such a big deal, only excepting that it is. On so many levels.
I am really thankful to all of you who’ve written privately to me or commented about this. I have observed, very interestingly, that nearly everyone who weighed in on this is a working mother. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence or not, but I’m going to go with the theory that working moms are the ones who have the strongest feelings about this issue. And I want to point out the sacrifice that working moms make to support their families on the financial front as well as the home front is no small thing. And this may be sexist and unfair, but I believe moms who work make the bigger sacrifice than dads who work.
I’ll explain why as soon as I have a reason. Right now I only have a gut feeling.
Let me also say that I whole heartedly support and agree with women who work, whether by choice or by necessity. I hear ya. I really do. I am in your boat right now.
The issue for me is that I don’t want to be here, and I’ve come to recognize something about myself over the years and that’s this.
If I follow my heart, even when my head tells me I am crazy to do it, I will be okay. If I follow my head when my heart is wrenching inside my chest, I will not be okay until I align my life with my heart.
I am terrified to let go of a good position. I feel stupid, on so many levels, to do it.
But my heart is wrenching inside my chest, so I know I’ve got to change what’s going on here.
Please, wish me luck.
Ah, this post is hard to write as it’s making me all emotional. But mother’s day is coming and I want you to know something about my own mom.
(That’s me and my mom, in a friend’s wedding, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1974.)
I want you to know that she is, in all seriousness, the bravest woman I know. No exaggeration.
You see, everything we fear as mothers, my mom has faced. My brother, her firstborn, was born completely healthy but at 6 months got an infection that, due to medical negligence, turned into a catastrophic disease that left him severely brain damaged. For the rest of his life he was unable to do even little things like roll over or smile.
His care was so intensive that when she found out she was pregnant with me, a mere six months after my brother’s problems began, people worried. Who could deal with both a newborn baby and a very sick 18 month old? Her friends, and some family thought there was no way she could handle it.
Clearly, they didn’t know my mother.
Over the years I have tried to understand how my brother’s disability may have affected my mom. Now that I am a new mom, I can just begin to understand her nightmare.
I look at my 15 week old boys and see them healthy, growing, developing normally. Every small advance they make I celebrate like a Princeton Ph.D. Sometimes I do catch myself pondering all the many things that can go wrong along the way, but I can’t let myself think of it. The reality – that very bad things happen to very good babies - is too real for me. And if you’re already paying attention, then worrying won’t do a damned thing about it.
So when I need an extra dose of courage, (which is daily, no wait, several times a day) I look to Mom. She faced the worst and lived to tell about it. And beyond that, when she was in the thick of her nightmare, she opened herself up to the possibility of facing more fear and heartache by having me. But I guess she also opened up something else.
Like the possibility of being a kickass grandmother to two beautiful boys.
Happy Mother’s Day to my beautiful Mom.
The bravest woman I know.
