Sunday, February 15, 2009

We'll make them turn their heads everyplace we go

One of the running jokes in the movie Baby Mama was Sigourney Weaver's character, a woman in her fifties, who is still cranking out babies the old-fashioned way, while poor Tina Fey stands by helpless and barren. I laughed at the obvious gross-out factor, but then I thought about it: I'M (hopefully) going to be an "older mom" too. Excuse me while I go pop my prenatal vitamin and my Geritol.

I just turned forty. With luck and all that, say I get pregnant this spring. Figuring in the gestation period, multiplying by three, solving for X, that means by the time the baby is actually here, I'll be close to or actually be forty-one. Okay. I know that's not the big deal it used to be and it still doesn't quite put me in freak category, but it is something to think about. Some of my friends have teenagers already. Two of my friends who are barely two years older than I am are GRANDMOTHERS already, both three times over. Lisa, may she rest in peace, left behind three kids and three grandkids as well when she passed away at forty-two. Judging from this scale, I'm WAY behind schedule.

But I try not to judge from a scale or make too many comparisons, because if this is the way it worked out for me and let's hope it does, I don't feel bad about it. I don't think I'll be shunned in any social circles for it and if I am, well I guess there's not much I can do about it. Also, with my young-ish looks and the miracle of modern science, who says I can't fool people into thinking I'm in my MID-THIRTIES anyway! This though, would mean I give two shits about what anyone really thinks about it. I'm realizing more and more that I don't. One of the benefits of getting older, I guess.

Fertility treatment has been in the news a lot lately, what with that psycho mother of fourteen and all. It's brought up a lot of questions regarding the ethics and morals of this practice and the fact it probably should be regulated a lot more than it is. I agree with that. But I also think if this is the only way I could become a parent (besides adoption of course) and that it helps many other women similar to myself, it's a very good and positive thing. It's a damn miracle, actually.

Sometime in the next week or so, I start taking drugs, man. Fertility drugs, that is. Of course I've done extensive research, spending hours of internet time, reading about all the positives and negatives of the particular drugs I'll be taking. One thing I can say about all this. I used to think all it took to make a baby was having sex. Oh ho HO, how wrong I was. I've learned more about the reproductive system, bodily fluids, and long hard-to-pronounce words in the last two months than I ever thought possible. And I'm about to learn a whole lot more. Whoa.

Worry #1,205: Embarrassing my kid at his/her high school graduation when I fall down the bleachers and break my hip.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Okay, the breaking your hip thing made me laugh!

Disadvantages to being an older parent: Less energy to chase after the little buggers. Especially when they're low to the ground.

Advantages: Being sufficiently jaded by life to know when to just let some shit GO instead of obsessing like a 25-year-old does about, oh, everything. (Or maybe that was just us?)

I think sometimes that when my parents were my age, I was in my mid-teens. Weird. Of course, when Dys's mom was her age, uh, Dys was graduating high school...

Kim said...

TB - I was thinking of coming up with a list of pros and cons for being older; broken hip notwithstanding. Since I'm very neurotic, I am thankful to be older and calmer. Relatively speaking.