It’s The Best

Like with anything in life, there are positives and negatives. This week I want to focus on the positive. The topic: Having children over 40 and why it is the best (in my opinion). Don’t worry, I’ll also share with you why it is a drag (in my opinion)….just not this week. This week it’s all about how incredible it is to have a child when you are in your 40’s!

Let’s face it, if you have had a child at 35 or over, you’ve most likely heard all the terrifying warnings and reasons not to. My first prenatal visit at age 43 was colored with all sorts of possible doom and negative what ifs. I chose to filter out the gloom. While I was educated about the risks, I kept the information out of my mind and body. One of the best things about having a baby in your 40’s (in my opinion) is that you can. So many women struggle with conception. If you can get pregnant naturally (or with help) over 40, well, that’s something to celebrate!

All new mothers hear the polite advice from well wishers, time and time again. My son is 2 and I still get it. “Enjoy every minute! It goes so fast!” Well, the main reason I think having a baby in your 40’s is the best (in my opinion), is that you actually do enjoy every minute. Even when it’s hard, there is a baseline of joy that just can’t be beat. There is a patience I possess that, for me, has come with age. I’m certainly not saying that women having children in their 20’s and 30’s don’t enjoy their children. I can only speak from my experience as a 20 and 30 something. In my 20’s and 30’s, my life was all about me. The pace of my life was all about me. The choices I made were basically all about me. And I wanted it that way. I lived my life fully and with purposed abandon. I travelled the world, fell in and out of love and enjoyed freedom from most responsibility. It was how it should be for someone at that stage of their life (in my opinion). Conversely, with the birth of my son came profound responsibility. And at the age of 44, I welcomed it wholeheartedly. Someone younger might think my life now is a bore. The Veuve doesn’t flow as freely (or at all, come to think of it) and my bedtime is often before the curtain used to go up. The things I possessed and the adoration I sought are not barometers for bliss. My god! I thought a new pair of Gucci shoes equaled happiness. Silly girl. All those things are well and good, but they are not the stuff of life.

I get to do this parenting thing with a full awareness that it goes far too fast. I don’t wish time away like I used to. I get to be mature enough to share with my baby, my patience and my understanding of what true happiness really is. I get to not only enjoy his process, but have the emotional maturity to understand that he is his own person, and that while he is our whole world now, we will not always be his. I am old enough to know he will have to fail to succeed. I understand there will come a time to let go.

Anyone who has hit the 40+ mark understands what I am saying. I’m not saying you don’t have moments of doubt anymore or that you don’t feel like you are screwing up a lot of the time. That is the nature of parenting in a nutshell. But there is a level of surety and confidence that I bring to my parenting, to my life, that I did not possess in my 20’s or 30’s. It makes me a better mom. And THAT is the best thing about having a child over 40 (in my opinion).

Until next time, keep fighting the good fight, and remember, behind every great kid is a mom who is pretty sure she is screwing it up! Thanks for reading! Xo

Recipe For A Baby At 43!

If this is your first time reading my blog, welcome! I thought I would take a week to reintroduce myself to some people who started to read my blog only recently. The archives only go back so far, so I wanted to give you my back story. I try to be very truthful, very real…and FUNNY. Hope you enjoy! Here is my very first post….throwin it back!

So many friends ask me straight out “So HOW did you get pregnant?” Followed by, “You give me hope!” LOL. Oh my gosh, it was embarrassingly easy, which I KNOW is NOT the case for many women over the age of 35, let alone over 40! This I know from having many friends, who like me, because of their career or other personal things, decided to wait to have children. Many found themselves unable to conceive. I suppose I had made peace with the fact that I might not have a child. My life, I thought, was so great already, that it was truly okay if I was unable to conceive. Even choosing to marry my husband, who was 11 years my junior, came with the possibility that we might remain childless. And he married me anyway. Good guy 🙂 But once we decided to actually “try” to get pregnant, it was crazy quick. Here is my recipe for a baby. Lots of sex….like everyday (seriously)…with a younger husband. The first month we tried, we were pregnant. Now, I was very healthy. I had no reproductive issues. I do not want anyone to think I am being flip about how easy it was. My heart breaks for anyone who can’t conceive who really wants to. Especially now, as I know what I would be missing. I always kept it in my head, that if was meant to be, then it would be. So I guess I was really relaxed about it happening or not happening.

“lots of sex….like everyday (seriously)”

The first three months were fine, except I had really bad “morning” sickness ALL DAY LONG. I carried oyster crackers around with me like it was my job. And then the four month mark came around and I was miraculously better. To say the next three months were the best of the pregnancy, is an understatement. Even with the severe carpal tunnel I had in my left hand, and the placenta previa, which was stressful (but wound up being fine), the second trimester was a vacation compared to the last one. I even did a show up until I was 5 months.

6 months prego

7 months

The last trimester was lots of fun. Just ask my husband. (insert sarcasm) Lots of ice cream and foot rubs. My hands started swelling and the carpal was now in my right hand as well. My skin on my legs got severely dry and I started having Braxton Hicks contractions every few nights. When I asked my doctor (who was almost 20 years my Junior with a valley girl accent…I’m rolling my eyes) about the carpal, she said, “Huh??? I never really heard of that.” I did want to slap her, but refrained. I mean I just had to go online to find the eons of women who had dealt with it in their pregnancies. The joy of being an advanced maternal aged mom….even the doctors are younger than you. Oye! Perhaps the thing that struck me most was how tired I was. Tired like I had never known. Now I don’t know for sure, but seeing how hard the delivery was on my body, I think it had everything to do with my age…oh pardon, my advanced maternal age. 🙂

8 months

The beginning of 9 months! With the handsome hubby!

You don’t realize it….at least I didn’t…but you hit the 9 month mark…and you still have 4 more weeks to go!! It’s like a slap in the face! You go along thinking…I’m almost done!! But you’re not…its a cruel mathematical joke. You go quickly from walking to waddling. The swelling increases (and mine wasn’t as bad as some women can get. ) And the GAS!!! Holy Moly! My husband was never supposed to hear those sounds coming from me. NEVER!! Well that ship has sailed. Did I tell you we met on the Love Boat? No really, we did. Princess Cruises. I was a guest entertainer singing and he was my audio engineer….I am digressing. Anything to avoid the GAS.

A day or two before delivery.

To make me really savor the experience, Oliver decided to wait an extra week to arrive. So I was officially overdue…like a turkey who’s timer has popped (see photo). Because of my advanced maternal age, the doctor in the practice who I really liked (obviously NOT the gyno-girl), scheduled us for an induction. See, when you are young, they like to make you wait for the baby to be good and ready, but when your parts are older, they don’t want to take any chances. So one week overdue was plenty. Whew!

So…..The Baby Equation for us was this…..

43 year old female + 32 year old male + LOTS of sex (literally everyday)!!!! = Beautiful Baby Boy!

Don’t Hate Me

So after two weeks of sob story blogs, I decided it was time to lighten it up. Now, don’t hate me, but I completely escaped stretch marks. And don’t hate me even more, but I pretty much lost my baby weight within the first few weeks. I actually weighed less at my 6 month postpartum dr. appointment, than I did when I first found out I was pregnant. (I think the scale was light). I swear though, I lost muscle and we all know that muscle weighs more than fat. But nevertheless….I’ll take it for now. The first few months were tough on me…at least let me be a skinny bitch. 🙂 I have a few things I swore by throughout the pregnancy and some things that made clean eating really yummy.

So I gained 32 pounds during my pregnancy. I didn’t really gain anything until month 5 came around and then I started noticing a difference quickly. I didn’t diet. I ate well. I ate with a purpose. And that purpose was Oliver. No junky junk. Now that isn’t to say I didn’t have ice cream or treats…OH HELL YEAH. But when I had ice cream, it was all natural. No chemicals. No preservatives, additives, etc. I was clean eating. I pretty much have been a clean eater my whole adult life, so there was no struggle to eat well for little O. NO soda or as I like to call it, The Devil’s Nectar… I drank water like it was my job. I had a week or so when my Blood Pressure was oddly low and we linked it to being dehydrated. Also when I was dehydrated, I would get more of the Toni Braxtons (a.k.a Braxton Hicks Contractions) I didn’t need another sad love song racking my brain like crazy (see what I did there?? Lol.) ..So hydrating was key!!

This was a normal mid day snack for me..

I also found an amazing recipe on Pinterest (of course) for banana peanut butter energy balls. OMG! If you have not tried these, YOU MUST!! It’s literally 2 ripe bananas mashed. Add a cup of raw oats, 1/2 cup of peanut butter, and either 1/2 cup of raisins or, my favorite, 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips. Mix it all together. Stick the bowl in the fridge for an hour. Roll teaspoons of the mix into balls and put on a foiled cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Viola! I would keep them in my fridge and eat at least two-three late at night with some almond milk. They saved my ass. Literally. I pinned the recipe on my Pinterest board “Mommy Help,” but I am sure you could easily find it. LOVE LOVE LOVE them!!!

When I would fall off the wagon it was for a Sonic Vanilla Shake. I started by getting a mini….but that was just a tease. I stuck with the small and I would be very satisfied. Now they are by no means “good” for you, but at least they are made with real ice cream and real milk. So THAT was my guilty pleasure and I savored them each and every time. I am very grateful there is no Sonic near us where we live now. I don’t need that kind of temptation in my life. lol.

Oh Sweet Joy in a Cup. The Small Sonic Vanilla Shake!

Another thing I did pretty much everyday of my pregnancy, was walk. I kept up my usual 3 miles a day until I found out that I had placenta previa. I was a bit freaked, so I completely stopped for about a week or so, and then resumed with caution for the next month while I waited to get the placenta’s position checked. After the previa had corrected itself and after double and triple checking with my doctors, I resumed my regular walks…but took them a little easier, to be honest. Once I hit the last few weeks of pregnancy, I was waddling. But my husband and I would still go for a stroll after dinner pretty much every night. Told you he was a good guy. 🙂

I mentioned avoiding stretch marks. Now I do believe that some of that has to do with genetics. I don’t know if my mom got stretch marks from pregnancy (She can’t remember). But after four (yes, FOUR) children, I have to say, I don’t recall her having them. But…I wasn’t taking any chances. I used two things. One, I used in the mornings after I showered. It is Alba Botanica Hawaiian Body Oil /Kukui Nut. It was recommended to me by my sister-in-law who said she swore by it. I LOVE it!!!

I now swear by this!!!

And, every evening, my darling husband used to put Burt’s Bees Belly Butter on my stomach. It became our “before bed ritual.” For that alone, I love this product. And again, I didn’t get stretch marks, so I am sure it helped! It is a Burt’s Bees Product. Their Baby Bee Line is wonderful for babies, as well.

Mama Butter for your Belly!

Another thing I used every single day, was coconut oil. In my cooking and on my skin. Particularly my legs, which I mentioned got extremely dry. The doctors just told me to suffer through and lather with Eucerin. But nothing but coconut oil helped. I still use it everyday.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, after I had O, I was swollen beyond recognition. It was really bad the first week and got progressively better as the water left my body. Much of what I gained was baby and what accompanies the baby in the womb. Within a couple weeks my body had lost 25 pounds. Because I put the weight on slowly, it came off faster. Now you can stop your hating right now, because you know there is a fly in the ointment. Even though, I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight….my body has changed. And not in the way one strives for. My scar from my c-section is quite low, but the little pooch that sits right above said scar remains. Maybe if I tried harder, it would go away? My body has somehow shifted. I fit into my old jeans, but they just don’t feel quite the same. I’m softer now. In every way. You see, I also just don’t care quite as much as I used to about the appearance my body. That isn’t to say I don’t want to be healthy, of course I do. And I enjoy clothes too much to not fit into the crazy closet I acquired before baby O. But I don’t need to strut around in a string bikini anymore. In fact, the notion is not just laughable, but completely impractical. I enjoyed many more years of that than I probably should have pre-baby. I just don’t want to be one of those moms with her baby at the beach, falling out of her bathing suit while she picks up her little one. There is a lot of bending, stretching and heaving a heavy child involved in my day. I don’t need to be wearing a string bikini whilst doing so. But, hey, that’s just me.

Point being, my priorities are just different now. Does that mean I am just going to “let myself go?” No. I enjoy making an effort and I hope my husband appreciates it, as well. But it isn’t a top priority right now. Nor, dare I say, will it ever be again. Let’s do the math. By the time Oliver is at the age where I can actually relax at the beach, I’ll be in my mid 50’s or older. The bikini boat will have sailed by then, don’t you think? …Don’t you hope?

This is my new bikini replacement. Cute, eh? Made by bond-eye Australia.

Going into the pregnancy at the age of 43, there were so many things that could have gone wrong that I would have no control over. How I took care of myself was actually something that I could take an active part in. My doctor told me that a huge part of why my pregnancy went well was because of the good shape I was in before I got pregnant. It is no guarantee, obviously, but it helps. My advice, unwarranted as it is, is to keep active during pregnancy. WALK! The greatest exercise there is! And feed your body the way you would feed your child. Would you give your infant a Big Mac and fries? I hope not. So why give it to him in the womb? Anyway, that’s my story and I’m stickin to it. Until next time, keep fighting the good fight! And remember, behind every great kid, is a mother who is pretty sure she is messing it up. 🙂 xo

Recipe For A Baby At 43