Jann Blackstone-Ford - Midlife Motherhood: A Woman-to-Woman Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting

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Contents

To my little Harleigh,

who hated how long it took me to write this book

but loved that it was all about her.

You are my inspiration.

Authors Note

With a few exceptions, the names and identifying characteristics of the people who provided me with their experiences and insights for publication in this book have been changed. In some instances, people requested that their real names be used.

This book is for informational purposes and is not intended to take the place of medical advice from a trained professional. The fact that an organization or Web site is listed in this book as a potential source of information does not mean that the author or publisher endorses any of the information it may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be advised that Web sites offered as sources for information may have changed since this was written.

Acknowledgments

There are some people I must thank and without whose help I could not have written this book. First, to my family for your patience and understanding while I wrote. I love you all very much. My thanks to all the women of both the over40mommies Internet group and the midlifemother Internet group who so unselfishly confided their personal thoughts and feelings. My thanks to the women in the Midlife Motherhood support group for their devotion and wisdom, and to all those who contributed stories via the Midlife Motherhood Web site, www.midlifemother.com . My thanks to Darcie Johnston for her support and suggestions, and to Jeannette Brandt for her inspiration. My thanks to my sister for listening to me when I had writers block and for her undying support of anything I do. My thanks to Luba Djurdjinovic, director of the Ferre Institute, for her contribution on infertility, and to Jane Honnikman, of Postpartum Support International, for her help in preparing the section on postpartum depression. Many thanks to Ginny Porter for her time and effort in preparing the I Dont Have Time, Im a Mother Workout, and to my friend Tina for so precisely modeling each exercise. I would also like to thank Dr. William Gilbert of UC Davis Medical Center for answering my questions and supplying answers in lay terms so that even I could understand, and to everyone at ParentSoup and iVillage.com for their support of this project. Many thanks to my agent, Djana Pearson Morris, for keeping me on the straight and narrow, and last, but certainly not least, to my editor, Heather Jackson, and her assistant, Lindy Settevendemie, for their support and patience while preparing this manuscript.

Introduction

As I write this my mother-in-law is finally asleep. She lies in a bed next to my computer, peaceful at last, while my daughter bounces her basketball downstairs in the entryway. I cringe when I hear the noise. Shhhh! I think. Dont wake up Grandma. She knows shes not supposed to do that, bounce that ball in the house. It cracks the grout in the tile, but shes doing it to catch my attention. Come on, Mom! she shouts. Lets go shoot some hoops!

Help me up and hand me my cane, I think. That was something my father used to say in jest when I as a young girl wanted him to play with me. All of a sudden I get it, and as I stand up from the computer, weary from being spread too thin, I smile at my awakened mother-in-law. Ill be back in a sec, Mom. Will you be OK? She smiles back sleepily and I head across the street with my daughter for those hoops.

As we walk, my daughters hand in mine, small bits of my life flash before my eyes. Ive known that woman upstairs in the bed for over thirty years. She gave me my first job at sixteen, and little did I know when she was teaching me to give change that I would be caring for her when she was older. I married her son almost twenty years later, after a fluke reintroduction following my divorce. Her son and I had gone to high school together and after facing some of lifes trialsdivorce and the death of a parent, his smile was strangely comforting. Marrying him was the second smartest thing I ever did.

The first smartest thing was to have this child whose hand is pulling me across the street. I met opposition, from friends, from family, from society, but for me it was the right thing to do. Why are you smiling, Mommy? my daughter asked. I chuckled to myself. I was just remembering, honey. Remembering about having you.

We had so many close calls that when I finally did become pregnant I knew my husband wouldnt believe me, so I made the doctor confirm it in a letter. My hand trembled a little as I handed him the note. He took it from me with a kind of what-is-this look on his face.

I had taken a home pregnancy test the day before, my tenth in three years. This time I had chosen the one that showed a plus sign when you were pregnant and a minus sign when you were not. They were the least expensive. Sometimes you can even buy two in a box, and I anticipated having to use the additional one next month. Nope, honey, my husband said when he had looked at the results. Thats only a half a plus. Its not a full plus. Dont get your hopes up.

So, it was no wonder that when I presented him with a note from the doctor he was still skeptical. Yes, Mr. Ford, your wife is four weeks pregnant. He did not look up. He just kept reading the words over and over again.

I was almost forty years old and somewhere along the way I had acquired a condition that made pregnancy merely a question to ponder. Just one more operation should do the trick, our specialist told us. Then there was the problem of my husbands vasectomy. You do realize, my doctor told me, that if you get pregnant it will be a miracle. But destiny was on our side, even if there was only half a plus.

Okay, my husband said finally looking up from the handwritten note, but were still naming it Harley, even if its a girl. Harleigh Marie Ford was born in early spring and now, at nine, she was holding my hand as we headed for the court.

According to a National Vital Statistics Report, The only age groups for which birth rates have consistently increased are women aged thirty years and over. Although the teenage birth rate continues to drop, the increase in the number of babies born to women over thirty-five is staggering.

But I was feeling out of sync. Although I seemed to fit into the physical demographic of women having babies at midlife, with it came unexpected changes in my outlook for which I was unprepared. After twenty years in the workforce, climbingand I do mean c-l-i-m-b-i-n-g up the corporate ladder, I simply had no desire to keep on keepin on. I knew I could do it. I had been promoted to the director, but I also knew that time slips through your fingers and my children would be grown in the blink of an eye. I had been there, and done that. I was embarrassed to say that a successful career outside the home just wasnt important to me anymore, and I secretly felt as if I was letting down my sisters of the womens movementthe ones that had sacrificed in the 60s and 70s, the ones I stood next to while fighting for equality in the workplace. There was safety in those numbers. I was part of a movement. But now I wanted to stay home and be with my baby. Becoming a mother once again, but this time at midlife, had completely changed my priorities!