Five Challenges of Older Parents

I am 47 years old and am the proud mother of an eight year old boy and a five year old girl. When my husband and I decided to go ahead and have a family, even though I was looking at the downside of my 30s, it never really crossed our minds not to do it. We had it all figured out of course. We would have a boy and a girl as close together as we could have them (we were hoping for twins). I would stay in my career, working to support our family, while my husband would be the stay at home dad. Unfortunately... it didn't exactly work out that way.

My husband and I met online just before 9/11. We were both gainfully employed. I already had my Bachelor's Degree. Brian was working on his. But by the time we walked down the aisle in April of 2004, we were both unemployed and looking at an uncertain future. Before we went on our honeymoon in August of that year, I had already had two miscarriages. Another followed not long after.

By the time I was offered a career opportunity to move to Phoenix, AZ, we'd basically given up on the whole kid thing. Figured it just wasn't in the cards after all. That was late 2005. Brian had gotten a good job driving truck, with good health insurance, and my career was finally back on track, albeit, with a property development startup. Well, you can kind of guess what happened next. We got pregnant again, and the housing bubble burst.

The first challenge of being an older parent are the genetic tests. I was 38 when I became pregnant with Leel. Downs Syndrome and other genetic abnormalities become more of a possibility. Thankfully, the barrage of tests put Leel's risk of a genetic abnormality at less then 1%. We spent a lot of time in doctor's offices, and I had to fork over a lot of blood, to get those results.

My last day at my job (I was being let go because the housing market flatlined), I started to bleed. I left that position in an ambulance. By the time I got to the Women's hospital, my doctor had already abandoned me (he didn't do high risk). I was 26 1/5 weeks along or so. I spent the next two and a half weeks in the hospital with HELLP syndrome. I required transfusions and steroids to keep me going long enough for the baby to develop far enough to have the best chance to live outside of the womb. That miracle time was 29 weeks the doctors said. We made it, and Leel was taken out by emergency c-section (my platelets were dropping again). He was tiny, but healthy. I spent another two weeks in the hospital battling infection and recovering. Leel came home two weeks after that.

Boy were we unprepared! It is hard enough trying to prepare for a full term baby, but a preemie has its own set of special rules. Leel was born blind, which is quite common. He required special doctor visits which had to be done like we were trying to smuggle him out of the country. Preemies CANNOT get sick. Things relax a bit once they reach their actual due date. Leel was born in December. He was due in March.

Because of Leel's special needs, Brian couldn't quit his job or we'd lose our health insurance, and I couldn't get another job because we had no one to watch Leel.

The second challenge of being older parents is less family support. Leel's grandparents were already in their 70s by the time he was born. My father died decades before his birth. My mother was/is in poor health. Brian's parents are still independent, but not physically capable to watch little children for very long. Brian's and my siblings were already in the middle of raising their own families and/or careers. Brian and I (and our families) were at the mercy of the job market as well, since it was the time of the Great Recession. Several of our siblings lost their jobs after 2008. Brian had to go where the jobs were. More often then not, those jobs were no where near our families.

Don't get me wrong, our families totally stepped in when Leel was born, and later when Runa arrived. They've been nothing but supportive and there for us in every way they can be. Our families rock. We are super blessed to have them all.

The third challenge of being older parents is giving up our lives/dreams. Young parents have similar issues, but as older parents, we don't have the years after the kids go to school and leave the nest to look forward to. Originally we had thought Brian would be getting his graduate degree at the same time as being a stay at home dad. His parents went to school at the same time they started a family. Instead I gave up my career for the most part, and Brian gave up getting his graduate degree since he had to work to support us. An acquaintance, a new father, was going on to me just today about how he had to give up scuba diving and his home beer distillery because he decided to become a father. It clarified to me what Brian and I have given up due to our age to have our kids. We were not well off when we met and decided to live the rest of our lives together. Were we selfish to want a family anyway? I don't know. We have no regrets regardless. We adore our children. We'll both be near retirement age by the time they graduate from high school. So, instead of saving for our retirement, we are saving for our kids' college educations. Retirement is very likely not in the picture for us.

We both believe we'll be able to go back to school eventually, ourselves. I want to get my Masters in order to teach, and Brian wants to get several degrees so he can live out the rest of his days doing linguistic and anthropological research. We still dream.

I spent the first almost three years with Leel mostly alone. I did freelance graphic design from home to help bolster our income while Brian was out on the road. When I became pregnant with Runa, we decided to make a push to move closer to family. At about seven months along, we moved closer to Brian's family.

My pregnancy with Runa was completely normal. No preeclampsia this time. Again we went through all the genetic testing and more. This time I was tested for diabetes over and over again, and tested for long term high blood pressure. I passed every test. But at eight months along I was experiencing PPD. Probably due to the stress of finding a doctor. Even though we had good insurance, no doctor wanted me because of my age and weight. They'd throw tests at me trying to find a problem so they could excuse their not wanting to treat me. Didn't matter I was almost full term. On top of that, we couldn't come up with $3,600.00 upfront. That was our insurance deductible. We paid out of pocket for all the tests, but it wasn't enough for the doctors I saw. Having insurance was more of a problem then help. Because we had insurance we couldn't go to a clinic or get medicaid. But because we couldn't afford our deductible, no for-profit doctor would consider us. We figured I'd be having Runa in an ER (rates are quadrupled that way) whenever I went into labor. The biggest problem, besides cost, with that scenario is the complications that could arise from having a natural birth after already having a c-section. A few weeks before I was due, a teaching hospital took me on, thank goodness!

Runa was born via c-section when I was 41 years old. Although the pregnancy was completely normal, my recovery afterwards wasn't. I write about that experience in three separate posts - Hitting Misery's Bottom, No Where to Go But Upward, and Healing - http://contemporary-native.blogspot.com/2012/03/hitting-miserys-bottom.html .

The fourth challenge of being older parents is preparing for our deaths (and old age in general). Our kids could be very young when one or both of us die. We hope not, of course. We both hope to live into our 80s or more. Brian is convinced he'll see 100. For me, though, because of my weight and limited movement, I have to be more realistic. Having my two children took a lot out of me, I'm afraid. Finding Guardians for our kids in case of our deaths while they are still young is much more immediately important. Thankfully, we both have siblings and friends who want to help. As it is our children will be living through their grandparents' deaths sooner rather than later. Luck willing we will be there to help them through their first experiences with grief.

The fifth challenge of being older parents is missing out on our children's adult lives. Will we live to see our children become successful? Get married and have families of their own? We don't know. Will we ever get to the point where we see our kids as fellow adults instead of our little babies? I sure hope so. I hear all the time from other parents about how much they miss their kids being little. We do not. Not at all. For us we are always anxious for the next year. We can't wait to watch our kids grow, learn and blossom. Every year behind us is a personal success for us and our kids. No way would we want them to be babies again. Baby fever is definitely a thing of the past for me. Perhaps part of that is because I am starting to go through my change of life. My poor husband. He has to deal with my menopause and our kids' adolescence at about the same time. Hormone overload! Poor hubby!

Every parent has their own challenges. Every parent gives up much to have children. We aren't special in that regard. Some of the challenges are just different. And some, like giving up privacy in the bathroom (or anywhere), we all share.