By the time I hit 40 I had amassed three kids and two husbands, and I appeared to be on speaking terms with all of them. So as far as I was concerned, my life was complete. My second husband has never had children but appeared genuinely ambivalent about it and, besides, he claimed that the mobile phone permanently parked in his trouser pocket for 20 years had rendered conception improbable. I classified myself as being “on the Pill”, but small details of routine have never been my forte and the odd slippage was inevitable. Even so, at my age, according to the media, my chances of conceiving were on a par with winning the lottery.
Only last week an incredibly serious editorial in the British Medical Journal highlighted the problem of age-related fertility problems faced by career women who appear to be “unaware that they are gambling with their ability to reproduce”. It’s nonsense, of course. No working woman with a functioning maternal instinct who is in a happy, committed relationship chooses to postpone pregnancy. Usually, life has conspired against her, either romantically or financially, and in many cases, the fertility problems that stop her conceiving in her late thirties would have prevented her doing so in her late twenties anyway, particularly if the problem lies with her partner.
As it turned out, my husband’s infertility claims were seductively reassuring but wide of the mark. On Mother’s Day the press stud on the waistband of my new jeans burst open. I changed into a skirt. Suspiciously tight. I stood naked in front of the mirror observing my unnaturally rounded body and for the first time had the uneasy sense that my husband “did protest too much”. I ordered him to the nearest pharmacy. Ten minutes later, as we stared blinkingly at two incriminating little lines on a pregnancy test, he looked like the boy caught with his hands in the sweetie jar. The day passed in shocked disbelief and when the kids were finally in bed, we sat down and drew up a list of our options. We wrote down all the reasons why having a baby would be a terrible idea . . . millions. And all the reasons why it would be a great idea . . . none. And then we opened a bottle of wine.
Feeling like an idiot for getting myself into a situation that seemed to have no positives, I booked a termination for after the Easter break. Our greatest concern was the impact a baby would have on my three daughters: Scarlet, 13, and twins Ruby and Amber, aged 11. Years of overcompensation had helped them to cope with divorce and my remarriage, but a new sibling presented unimaginable challenges.
It seemed irrational to introduce chaos into such recently acquired order but, fortunately, logic rarely wins in a battle against emotion. The baby, we decided, was staying. OK, we hadn’t decided to have a baby, but we both felt incredibly lucky that a baby had decided to have us, and although we were terrified of breaking the news to girls who firmly believed that the world revolved around them, we were elated.
We agreed to keep the pregnancy secret until after the 20-week scan because we wanted to make sure everything was OK, and to avoid the pregnancy dragging out for the kids. By then I had gained 1½st (9kg), and gone from AA to DD. Psychologically, keeping it from the girls had become as stressful as the thought of telling them. We broke the news one Saturday lunchtime. The few friends we had told assured us that the kids would be “thrilled”; we knew better.
Emotional Armageddon ensued as the two youngest unburdened themselves in a primal tantrum. They sobbed and hyperventilated, asserting that we had ruined their lives and couldn’t understand how terrible it was for them to lose their mother to another. They paused only to reload their tear ducts when their eldest sister said: “Now you know how I felt when you were born.” Though the histrionics were spectacular, a doctor friend later confirmed that their reaction was a healthy catharsis.
Most infant children, he said, would react in the same way were they able to with any articulacy. Children hate change and anychange in their family structure or the consistency of their parents’ affection is threatening, which is why most mothers have to guard newborns from the malicious attentions of older siblings. We expected the angst to last until the baby’s arrival next month but the raw outburst of emotion was a one-off. Twenty-four hours and a trip to the toy shop later, normality returned. The kids even apologised and within a week were fighting over what to call “it”.
Relieved to have it out in the open, I felt free to supersize, a rapid and clearly emotionally driven process. I’ve since discovered that pregnancy growth spurts often correlate to periods of relaxation during an otherwise stressful life.
Getting bigger hasn’t bothered me as much at 40 as it did at 30, but I still feel bashful that my teenage approach to contraception means that I am re-embarking on the whole process of raising children. As someone about to have her fourth child I can’t pretend to fit the profile of the incredibly grateful older woman who finally has a much longed-for baby. I haven’t eaten only nuts and berries for nine months or hired a breast-feeding coach. Alcohol has passed my lips (albeit not in my usual industrial quantities), and I’ll take as many drugs as I can during the birth.
Despite my less than religious approach to this pregnancy, the hospital seems remarkably uninterested in me and my baby, which I am interpreting as a good sign. Because older women tend to have a higher incidence of Down’s syndrome babies I had a nuchal scan (which measures fluid at the back of the baby’s neck; Down’s syndrome babies tend to have increased fluid) and a couple of blood tests to establish whether I would need amniocentesis (where a small sample of the amniotic fluid surrounding the foetus is removed and examined to confirm diagnosis of the syndrome).
Since I hadn’t realised that I was pregnant initially, I hadn’t been taking folic acid, known to help prevent birth defects, so I was concerned, but the test results showed my risk to be one in 49,999: reassuringly low. This may be because in February and March I developed an obsession with purple-sprouting broccoli, rich in, you guessed, folic acid. Though I was oblivious, my body knew what I needed. Let’s just hope it was right about me needing another baby too.
Older but not wiser
Suzi Godson is not alone in playing it fast and loose with contraception in her forties. A national roadshow this year, sponsored by the healthcare company Schering and aimed at mothers, showed that age was no guarantee of responsibility when it comes to what goes on behind the bedroom door. As the roadshow toured shopping centres, from Truro to Glasgow, offering consultations with family planning nurses, some unexpected data began to build up about women’s sexual habits.
One mother of three, at the roadshow in Newcastle, became tearful and admitted terrible feelings of guilt about her termination whenever she met other mothers with four or more children. “We would have coped,” she said, “but my youngest wasn’t out of nappies and my husband was adamant that three was enough. I needed his support, so I listened to him. It was a horrible wake-up call and I grieved for a long time afterwards.” EMMA MAHONEY
