Gifts

But, again, the choice to remain childless sometimes comes unstuck with a late and unexpected pregnancy. Then the woman has to make an often painful choice-to have a baby or an abortion. “I was 40. We’d been married three years and agreed that children weren’t in the cards. It was a big shock when I got pregnant. My husband said, ‘Well, why don’t you just have the baby? It might be nice to have one.’ I said, ‘That’s easy for you to say! You don’t have to go through pregnancy and birth and everything. If you change your mind, you can walk away.’ Still, it didn’t seem right to have an abortion. I kept thinking this could be the only chance I’d ever have to have a baby. What if I had an abortion and then changed my mind? I’d never be able to live with myself if I thought I’d thrown away my one chance.”

“Getting pregnant made me realize how ambivalent my feelings were about this whole motherhood thing,” recalls Gail, who had her first and only baby at 4I. “I’d been perfectly happy not to have a child. When I thought I might be pregnant I felt awful-worried and confused. But then, when I got the pregnancy-test result, I was ecstatic! I don’t think I’d ever felt that happy. I was so excited and I felt-I know it sounds awful-I felt so womanly, somehow.”

For the woman who is much older, pregnancy can seem too remote to be something to count on. “When I remarried in my early 40s, I thought we wouldn’t have a child,” says Ann, who had three children from her former marriage, then almost grown up. “I did think it would be too bad if John, who was I2 years younger than I, couldn’t have a child because of my age. I had a miscarriage when I was 44. That was sad, a disappointment, because I thought it would be my last chance, but it wasn’t a great trauma for me.

“I went back to teaching. I didn’t take any precautions and I didn’t conceive. Then, two years later, my period was late and I felt terrible. When the pregnancy test came back positive I was thrilled, but I’d had two miscarriages and I didn’t want to get too excited.” A healthy son was born when she was 47.

Heather, who remarried in her mid-thirties, also had miscarriages. “I thought it was too late and I probably wouldn’t be able to have a baby. I thought it was too much trouble anyway and I wasn’t sure I wanted to try again. The doctors said to wait before I tried again, so I asked Stephen to use a condom. He was careless about it and I conceived, so Margaret is an accident after three miscarriages!”

The much-older mother may not even be aware she has conceived. Marilyn was 43 with two grown-up sons when her periods became somewhat irregular. “I put down the lack of periods to my age, and since I’d always gained weight easily, I didn’t really notice what was happening. When I finally went to the doctor and had a pregnancy test I discovered that I was already 20 weeks pregnant. It was really too late to have an abortion.”

Accidental pregnancies later in life can cause women-and their partners-to do a lot of soul-searching. “I was 45 when I discovered I was pregnant. I’d become a little careless about contraception. I just didn’t think I was fertile any more. At first I thought I’d terminate the pregnancy, and that’s what I told my doctor. But then one night I just said to my husband, ‘What if I did have the baby?’ We talked about it and decided to go ahead. We loved one another, we could cope with a baby, and I still feel deep down that ending a pregnancy would be wrong. At the same time, I could have had an abortion, and I have a lot of sympathy for any woman who finds herself having to make that difficult choice. If Len had said no, it would have been very different. There’s no way I would have had the baby without his support.”

Second time around

Another reason for the increase in births to older mothers is the increasing incidence of divorce and remarriage. Many women who have completed their first family split up, then remarry or live with a new partner. They want to have a child to seal the relationship. This can be especially important when the new partner has not had children before.

“When I married Clay I had two teenage children and he had a daughter, age four, from his previous marriage. We both very much wanted to have another baby although I was nearly 40. It seemed to us that having

another baby would bring the whole family together. It also seemed like a good idea to provide a brother or sister for Laura, who wanted one very much.”

Victoria was 47 when she gave birth to her fourth child; her other three children from her first marriage were in their early twenties. “Sam was I4 years younger than I. We’d discussed children and decided it was fine not to have them. But I didn’t like to think it would be my age that kept Sam from being a father. He was good with children-everyone’s wonderful uncle and godfather. Lucky for us, it was the right thing to do. It’s been wonderful for him to have a child.”

I often volunteer at various walks and runs that raise money for certain causes that I feel strongly about, like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which is put on annually to raise money for breast cancer research. These runs are often emotional even if you don’t know anyone who has the ailment that you’re running for. While among the thousands of survivors, loved ones of those who have been lost to breast cancer and people who just want to help like myself it is easy to become overwhelmed by the bittersweet mix of feelings. You are sad for those who have lost their lives but at the same time overjoyed at the amount of support coming from the thousands of people all joined together for one purpose.

I have done many of these types of benefits but the one that affects me the most is the SIDS walk/run that I volunteered at. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is one of the leading causes of death among infants one month through one year of age in the United States. The sudden, unexpected death of an infant to SIDS is such a heartbreaking loss. Death happens suddenly, leaving the family no time to prepare, not that you could ever be prepared to lose a child.

It’s almost haunting as I remember walking by the hundreds of pictures of these tiny little people, all who had been stolen by this mysterious cause of death. SIDS can not be predicted or prevented but here are ways to lessen your child’s risk of SIDS.

• Have your baby sleep on their back for the first year. Letting a baby sleep on their stomach gives them a much higher risk of SIDS.
• Place baby on a firm mattress with no pillows or fluffy blankets. Suffocation caused by these things has been associated with a higher SIDS rate.
• Do not smoke, drink, or use drugs while pregnant and do not expose your baby to secondhand smoke. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s figures indicate that children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy are three times more likely to die of SIDS than those whose mothers were smoke-free; exposure to secondhand smoke doubles a baby’s risk of SIDS.
• If possible, breastfeed. Although there is no evidence that directly links breastfeeding with a decreased rate of SIDS, breast milk is thought to keep babies healthy.
• Limit your baby’s exposure to people who have respiratory infections. This means if you know someone is sick, don’t let them around your baby, and try to avoid taking your baby to crowded places where there may be sick people.
• Make sure your baby does not get too warm while sleeping. To avoid overheating, cover the baby only with a light blanket that reaches no further than the shoulders. Some researchers suggest that a baby who gets too warm could go into a deeper sleep, making it more difficult to awaken.

For parents who have experienced a SIDS death, there are many groups, including the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Alliance, that provide grief counseling and contacts to local support groups. Growing public awareness of SIDS and the steps to reduce infants’ risk of SIDS hopefully will leave fewer parents searching for answers in the future.

Parent. What the heck does that word mean, exactly? I used to think that I knew, but after taking a step back, maybe I don’t. There are biological parents and foster parents, adoptive parents, stepparents-are they all the same?

Some people say a parent is simply one of the two people biologically connected to a child. The legal system likes this definition a lot. This can’t be the definition of a parent, though, because it doesn’t explain why kids in foster care or kids from divorced or blended families may call someone other than the two people responsible for their conception “mom” and “dad”. It doesn’t address those who adopt. It doesn’t address why some kids prefer the company of daycare providers or older, responsible siblings above other company. Some people say a parent is someone who provides financial support, but that can’t be it, either-even when money abounds, kids can complain and have a host of problems. Kids would probably say the definition of a parent is someone who makes their life miserable-on purpose.

The fact is that a parent is a strange creature. After all, what person in their right mind would bring home a screaming, wriggling little thing that demands that an adult undergo lack of sleep, worry, frustration, and general annihilation of bank funds (even if the person uses coupons)? Parents don’t get any financial reward for what they do, and anyone who ever has changed the diaper of a kid on formula will attest to the fact that being a parent doesn’t really earn a whole lot in terms of glamour points.

That being said, I think that the one defining characteristic of a parent is the capacity to care about another human being. Parents, regardless of age, gender, occupation, etc.-even regardless of whether or not they are biologically related to the child for which they care-are those who are willing to put a child’s needs above their own. They are those who regularly, every day, without fail, sacrifice and explain the world to those who don’t know it yet, who protect those who can’t yet protect themselves. Come rain or shine, they have food on the table (or at least, in a brown paper baggie or lunch box) and do all they can to make sure that a child doesn’t have to be afraid, that a child is safe and happy.

The definition of a parent out of the way, I should note that the reality of parenting is this: The capacity to care doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to do it all and do it all right. Sure, there are those whose kids are always spotless and have the latest gadget, and sure, that can make us feel like we’ve failed if we can’t afford this or that and honestly just couldn’t stop our kid from jumping in a mud puddle on the way to school. Even so, a good parent doesn’t lose sight of an even larger truth-a few words of encouragement can be worth more than a new gadget, and a kiss on a boo-boo (even a dirty boo-boo) can seem like the kiss of a heroine. All kinds of people provide those kinds of things. So is a foster parent a real parent? Yes! A stepparent? Undoubtedly-but a big sister, a teacher, a social worker… those people act like parents, too. Even someone who never has had a child can have an innate sense of what a child needs and work to provide it unselfishly. Thus, my only conclusion is this: It’s not the label that matters. It’s what you do with a child that does.