Old Mrs. Tesauro

     Age has never been something that bothered me. I don't feel old and I don't think that I particularly act or look old. I have never felt compelled to lie about my age or been bothered when people try to guess it. An older gentleman I used to treat once tried to guess my age. He guessed 40 and I just laughed, hoping that it was due to his 80 year old eyesight. But I can honestly say that age has never been anything other than a number to me.

     The first time in my life that this stability was shaken was when I had been trying to get pregnant for a few months. I found myself starting to do some light research into ways to speed up the process and came across some information that I had known, but had never really given a great deal of thought to. How much harder it is to get pregnant the older you get. I knew this was a thing. But I didn't really know that it was a thing for me. I looked pretty good for being in my thirties and I was pretty sure that Jim's sperm was into older ladies anyway. No worries on my part about that.

     But unfortunately, facts are facts. From a biological standpoint, your early twenties are actually the best time of your lifespan to conceive. This is the time in your life when ovulation is the most predictable and your eggs are at their freshest. In medical terms they are referred to as “ripe” meaning primed for fertilization. This is the decade when it is the easiest to get, stay and be pregnant more than at any other time in your life. The risk of complications is also at it's lowest in your twenties. In my twenties however, having babies was the absolute last thing on my mind. I spent these years focused on me, me, me and I loved every second of it. I went out to bars at night and focused on school and building my career in the day. I got my bachelors degree and then went on to get my masters, which included working full time, a full course load in school and a 22 hour per week internship. I was running 12 to 18 hours per day, seven days a week by the end. No room for babies. After graduation I went into private practice and focused on building my business. I spent my time and money on myself and felt no guilt about it whatsoever.

     But the clock relentlessly ticked on and by your thirties your eggs, which are all still the same eggs that you were born with are now more mature as well. Not to mention, the easy eggs are long gone by now. The eggs that were the most likely to “ripen” are released first, so by the time you hit your thirties those nice ripe eggs are just a distant memory that you probably wasted with some loser you would never dream of having kids with anyway. It was during this period of my life that I decided to start my family. Jim and I decided to have a baby when I was 31 years old. As the years passed however, I began cursing those years where I so carefully took my birth control for fear of getting knocked up.

     The first half of your thirties are actually easier in which to conceive than the second half. After age thirty-five you start to see the most dramatic drop off in fertility rates. A healthy thirty year old woman has around a twenty percent chance of getting pregnant each month. By age forty however, that percentage drops to only five percent. This is also when a woman runs a much higher risks of complications like gestational diabetes and Down syndrome. Another fun fact is that age thirty-five classifies you as a “high risk” pregnancy. Fertility treatments also become less effective at age thirty-five. So as the years passed me by, I began for the first time in my life to fixate on an age that I dreaded. Thirty-five. Every time I thought of that age I turned into that dramatic gopher meme. What if I hit thirty-five?????!!!

     Well, I haven't yet. Hopefully I do get to see thirty-five. It is much less scary now. I finally got pregnant at thirty-three. But during my pregnancy, I had another brush with the evil age monster. At my first doctor appointment, I was informed that they were planning “to watch me a little bit closer than usual” due to the difficulty that I had experienced conceiving and because I was “approaching the age of a geriatric pregnancy.” Yep. That's a real term and they will call you it right to your face. I turned into Ralphie when Santa told him he would shoot his eye out with a BB gun. A geriatric pregnancy? Well, of course I looked it up and what do you know? At age thirty-five the medical term becomes a geriatric pregnancy. There does seem to be a push however, to stop using that term for the description of a fossil who has decided that she wants a baby even while she has one thirty-five year old foot in the grave already. The medical profession is trying to be more sensitive since it is so much more common now for women to put off having kids until later in life than was common for past generations. But, my doctor did not get that memo, so that was that.

     I was fortunate, my little guy was healthy and I avoided the complications that could have been. I had my little Bean around two weeks after turning thirty-four. It doesn't bother me that I am an older mom. I'm always tired, but to be honest, I was always tired before I had Archer so I don't know how much I can blame him for that. Plus, I think that experience is pretty common for every mom, young or old. Most moms with young children who are my age are on their second or third child. A considerable number of girls that I graduated with have tweens, some even have teenagers. A few friends who are only a few years older than me are even young grandmothers. I fully expect to be older than most of the other mothers in Archer's class at school. I am older by at least ten years than the other mothers in the online groups for first time moms of which I am a member. I see the other moms in swimming class and at doctor appointments and I'm usually one of the oldest in the room but I find that I often feel good about having a few extra years under my belt. I overhear them talking about issues with their boyfriends or trying to find a babysitter so they can study for an exam and I am glad to be at a place in my life where homework is no longer an obstacle in my day.

     Being a little longer in the tooth, I am more financially stable, I am in a healthy and strong relationship and I don't let the little things bother me as much as I think I would have as a younger mom. I left most of my selfish traits in my past where they belong. I got the bars and the late nights out and about out of my system. I have zero interest in sitting my fat ass on a tiny bar stool anymore. The low cut, bedazzled party tops are restricted to old pictures. Now the only time my boobs are even remotely visible in public is when I have a baby attached to one. I don't mind for a second that I spend very little of my money or time on myself. In fact, I love it.

     Of course I do the math from time to time. I am almost exactly 34 years older than my son. When he is ten, I'll be forty-four. When he is twenty-one, I'll be fifty-five. When he is the age that I am now, I will be sixty-eight. We don't often see our seventies in my family, so I assume that when he is few years older than I am now, I'll probably be dead. I think about what age I will be when he graduates high school, when he graduates college. I wonder what age I'll be when I become a grandmother and honestly, I'm fine with all of it. To me age has again reverted to just a number.

     The only thing that does bother me is that there is probably very little chance of Archer ever being a big brother. As I always tell the people who ask, I would love to have another baby but I will never try to get pregnant again. I don't think that what is left of my sanity could take it and with ongoing frequent night feedings my temperatures now would be pretty much worthless. So charting would be out. I feel immensely grateful for getting the chance to be a mommy, even if only this once. But I would be lying if I said that the thought of another set of little feet running around behind Archer's wasn't enticing. After a c section it is recommended that you wait at least 18 months to become pregnant again. This means that if Jim and I do end up blessed with a second baby, I will definitely be past the thirty-fifth birthday mark, da, da, daaaaaaaaa... Which is scary but not so scary that I wouldn't be thrilled.

     I have a sister and I really can't imagine my life without her. Not as a child and not as an adult. A sibling is a very important person in one's life. They are at once your best friend, the person that you have always and will always hope to measure up against and the one who when all else fails you know that you can turn to when the shit really hits the fan, or explodes Matrix style out of a diaper. A sister is truly the original ride or die bitch. I would hate for Archer to miss out on that.

     But even if Archer does end up as an only child, he will never be at a loss for friends. My cousin's daughter, my sister's kids and my soon to be arriving new niece or nephew will always be close by for a play date or a sleepover and for this I am eternally grateful. I grew up very close to my own cousins so I know how special that relationship can be.

     It would be wonderful to reap the benefits of being a younger mom, but that ship has absolutely already sailed, docked and is resting somewhere far from where I will ever be. But being a more mature mom certainly is not without it's charms. My boobs may hang to my knees now and I may need to explain to people as we get older that no, I am not Archer's grandma, but in this case more than any that I have ever experienced, it's better late than never.