It's really been bothering him lately. He worries about having the energy to keep up with our kids, but mainly he just keeps saying, "I'll be almost 60 when they graduate!"
How do I handle this? I grew up in Mormon-land. Women start having babies in their late teens or early twenties. Their husbands are all almost exactly 2 years older than them (because the young women marry returned missionaries). So yeah, young. But then they have 8 kids, and so suddenly, not so young. Several of my friends had parents in their 50s when I was in high school. My mom was young when I was born, but 30 when she had my brother. I'm 31, so I don't really see a problem with my age. But my husband is 8.5 years older than me. I can kind of see where he's coming from. 50 sounds old. 60 sounds ancient.
But seriously, it's not. His situation is so difficult. He has no grandparents, and his parents are not in good health. His mom has Turner's, and so was pretty much never in good health. She had a stroke about 3 years ago and hasn't really recovered well (but certainly better than many, frankly). His dad...well, I don't really know. His dad is an ex-military man of "that generation", where men simply did not do a damn thing around the house. When they visit us or we visit them, he puts me to work. Not his son, certainly not him, but me. I go along with it, since we see them so rarely that a fight isn't worth it. So really, his dad is probably in perfectly fine health, he just doesn't do anything. Which means they're moving in with my sister-in-law, a total saint and freaking awesome lady.
I try to point to my grandparents--in their late 80s and doing great. They've slowed down a lot over the past 5 years, but neither has been hospitalized, neither has major health problems, neither can't drive, etc. They go on vacations, go to those "lifelong learning" classes. Or my great-aunt. Now, she's almost 90 with Post-Polio syndrome. And has been a widow for 12 years now (her husband died of pancreatic cancer, out of the blue). And she's incontinent, which is sad. And can't drive herself anymore, also sad. And she sometimes forgets things. Not the important things, but she'll call me twice to invite me to Thanksgiving dinner and then not call my older sister at all. That sort of thing. So...old, but still ok.
60 really isn't old. But he feels like it is.
And he doesn't want any children after these ones, because he'll be too old.
This is heartbreaking to me. Look, I have no idea about twins, I really don't. I've never been a steady babysitter for any, nor do any of my friends or cousins or anyone have twins. It might very well be that I'm done after them too. Or that, frankly, we look at things and decide we could have vacations with 2 kids, but not 3, pay for 2 college tuitions, but not 3, etc. I mean, you never know. It may be that I never want to do fucking IVF ever again, god I hate it! (I do, I hate IVF. But I love it, since it got me pregnant.) But I might want more. And yes, he may change his mind. But the notion that this pregnancy may be my only one is already making me sad and nostalgic and FUCK INFERTILITY IN THE ASS.
8 comments:
I know how you're feeling. The entire time I was pregnant with my twins, and every step of the way when they were babies I kept telling myself "Remember this! You will never get this moment again!" Take it one day at a time. My husband said over and over after the twins that we were DONE, but he still agreed to do IVF again, and he is so thankful that we did because now he has his little girl. Now he is 41 and we are trying again. It seems weird to you, and maybe your husband too, but around here all our friends, everyone my husband works with, they are all this age. Maybe you just need to move to CT, you won't feel so old :)
When you get a later start than you wanted it's hard not to think how "old" you be when the kids are growing up. I think everyone thinks about it from time to time. But tell him 60 isn't old at all and the twins will make him feel younger!!
It's funny how people's perspectives on age can be so different. A dear friend of mine is married to a man 32 years her senior, and he didn't hesitate to have a child with her when he was 63 years old (or a second at 65).
I am older than your husband (40), and I'm carrying twins myself (just a few days ahead of you, 9 weeks today). To me, there are pros and cons to being this "old" having my first (& second) child. I am more established in my life and in my career. I'm more mature and patient than I was at 25.
Sure, there's a downside--I'll probably have a harder time dealing with the sleep deprivation and having the energy to keep up with my children--but I think the cons are outweighed by the pros, at least for me.
(Oh, and I must say: as crappy as I have felt for the past three weeks, the thought of this pregnancy being my only one doesn't make me sad at all. In fact, I can't imagine ever voluntarily putting myself through this again! hee hee)
LOL Are you mormon? Because you don't have the clean mouth of one! hahah Makes me laugh :) I feel for your hubs and Im sure its hard not to feel like 60 will feel "old" when the kids are graduating. But its actually not so bad. Its not like he will be wheelchair bound or on oxygen or wearing false teeth. I kind of think if I had twins I might be done, but who knows if that would change after they grew up a little? I know the finality of saying "no more" is scary. So I can understand how you're feeling about the whole situation! :)
It depends SO much on culture what the average age of parents is.
I always thought I'd start having kids by 25 at the latest because I wanted to be a young mom within the constraints of college/grad school. We started putting the wheels in motion only after that because we were waiting for the Spouse to also "feel ready", and then there was infertility and lo, we were 28 by the time the Spouse whipped out the fertile uterus and produced kid #1. So, in my head we were a bunch of years behind this (ridiculous) self-imposed deadline. We definitely want a number of kids more, so I think it's very likely we'll have the last in ADVANCED MATERNAL AGE.
So, I had been thinking of myself as an mom who waited and had a difficult path to kid-making and thus resigned myself to being a medium-aged mom to our eldest and an older mom to our hypothetical future youngest.
And then I moved to Artsy Bohemian Island offshore of Hipster/Coffee/Rain City and I realized that a whole lot of the moms of same-aged kids are a good 10-14 years older than us. This was not immediately apparent since age is generally not talked about and it's hard to guess age, but it finally comes out when conversation shifts to talking nostalgically about pop culture of one's teenage years. In fact, there is ONE toddler mom I have met locally who is younger than me, by a whole year. Even by the time we have the last kid (assuming we go as far as the number that will make people we don't know start to wonder whether we are Mormon sister-wives) we will STILL be on the below average side for the peer group of our youngest kid.
In our alumni magazines, we scour for kid announcements because we're always interested in name choices, nearly none of the people we went to college with, or the spouse went to snooty private high school with, have actually had kids. It's way worse for PhD program peers! So we look through the previous years and have found that there, too, the typical thing seems to be to start having kids in late 30s for women, with men being even more late-shifted.
This is of course totally at odds with reproductive biology, so it sort of blows my mind that it's the NORM both locally and among the overeducated to wait until the female partner is 38-41 to have your first kid.
But where I'm going with this is that my parent-friends do not seem like they are midway in age between my own parents and me... I was genuinely shocked to find out that the people I'd thought of as my age or younger turned out to be a decade+ older.
I think that the parameters of aging have really shifted a lot along with the cultural norms of when adulthood is. People are taking better care of themselves and working harder to maintain youth/cultural hipness (very few grandmothers want to be called grandma these days!). Thus 50 or 60 now is not what 50 or 60 used to be, and will be even further off by the time we are actually reaching 50 or 60 ourselves. So, I agree that your husband's image of 50 or 60 is lagging a lot behind.
Also, depending on what cultural context you're in, your husband could very well be one of the YOUNGER dads even if you had more kids down the road.
So, basically what I'm saying is that if your husband feels old, you should move or you should hang out with more nerds. :)
But I hear you on the first-and-possibly-last successful-pregnancy thing being a bit terrifying. It's looking likely that I'll get to be pregnant again, but that nagging thought of "what if this is the last time I get to do this?" is still pretty present. I think all one can do is appreciate that it's a very lucky, tenuous thing to be pregnant at all and that no one can ever have a guarantee that they'll get to do it again... so I think everyone pregnant should just enjoy every moment as though it COULD be the last time.
But, yes, seconding your closing sentiment. And not in a nice, consenting, pegging sort of way either.
I always imagined having children in my mid-twenties and have just had my first aged 31, with my partner who is 48!
He also has a daughter who is 20, so has been a young (ish) dad and is now an 'old' dad, but all that matters is that he is a dad.
One thing you can be sure of is that your kids will always think you're ancient anyway whether you have them at 20 or 50!
Just wanted to say that I'm 25 and my dad had me at 40 and yes he is older than most of my friend's parents but it's not that bad. Nowadays it's way more common so I wouldn't worry about it!
Your guess as to where we live is spot-on. We weren't PLANNING on settling here at all (both our families are on the on other coast). We were just going to grad school here, and but then we couldn't bring ourselves to leave especially once we found the possibility of living someplace rural 20 minutes from a major city, without suburbs in the middle.
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