Late Motherhood. “I had two children in my 40s. People talk, but so what?”
Priorities
“Matylda is my surprise, and Miłosz is the icing on the cake”, says Agnieszka Chrościcka, who gave birth to a daughter at the age of forty-three and a son two years later. She has two adult sons from a previous relationship. She lives in the countryside in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. “When I got pregnant, there were comments that Maciek and I weren’t married, that how could I have a child at that age, that I was being stupid and reckless”, she says. “I know people talk, I have no control over it. But I know women who got pregnant late and had to make excuses for it. They were ashamed.”
There were complications during her pregnancy with Miłosz. “The blood work came up with the likelihood of Edwards’ and Patau’s syndromes, and I had to undergo an amniocentesis. I was afraid of the procedure because I have friends who have miscarried because of it. Then for three weeks I waited for the result and every night I had nightmares. When it turned out that everything was fine, it was a weight off my shoulders”, confesses Agnieszka. She felt great during both pregnancies. She laughed that maybe she was just made for having babies.
She claims that late motherhood is a different experience. “I guess I was a worse mother when I was 20. More curt and stiff-necked. It might have been partly because I was working two jobs, and also taking care of the farm. My parents helped me raise my children”, she says. “I’m employed at a school now, but after Matylda was born, I didn’t go back to work because I got pregnant with Miłosz.”
Apart from professional aspects Agnieszka sees other advantages in being a mother at a mature age. “When you’re 20, you’re afraid of everything. Now I can approach situations with more ease and perspective. When my baby used to cry while teething, I would cry out of helplessness along with them. Now I’ll hug them, I’ll hold them. When the boys were little, I used to run to the doctor with every stupid little thing. I used to panic over a low-grade fever, and now I only give the kids fever medications when they have 38.5°C.”
It’s also easier for Agnieszka to set priorities. “Nothing will happen if I don’t tidy up, and if I don’t clean the windows, it will still be Christmas. I’d rather play with my kids during that time. I don’t lack strength at all. I’ve always been active, I like to mess around, run around the market with a pram. And when I see the kids laughing, it drives me even more.”
Matylda is three years old, Miłosz is fourteen months old. Agnieszka is unable to name any disadvantages of late motherhood. She’s not afraid for the future, of sickness, of an early death. “You can die at any age”, she says. She also doesn’t think children are ashamed of having older parents today. And the fact that people in the village are talking? “I don’t care.”
Triple miracle
“We tried for a baby for nine years, I lost three pregnancies. In the fourth one, which I managed to carry to the end, there were a lot of complications”, says Patrycja from Warsaw. “Everything was going great at first. I felt great, I didn’t feel nauseous, I looked beautiful. But then the bleeding started. The prenatal tests came back normal. During the second trimester test, we found out I had bilobed placenta previa with suspected ingrowth, which meant I had to stay in bed from week twenty-eight onwards. If the contractions had started and the doctors hadn’t managed to do a C-section, I would have killed both the baby and myself by giving birth”, she explains. “I had thirty-two ultrasounds. When Kasia was born, I felt as if she’d always been there, I’d seen her so often already.”
She couldn’t touch her until the third day, because Kasia was born with pneumonia and saturation problems. “But two weeks later, when we left the hospital, everything was fine”, says Patrycja, who regards the birth of her daughter as a triple miracle. “We’d been waiting for years to get pregnant, and we finally did. Despite all the complications, I carried it to the end. And Kasia is healthy. She’s now seventeen months old, she’s developing normally, she’s taller than her peers, she’s been walking since she was a year old. The only trace of what she’s been through is a hemangioma on her head, but you can barely see it.”
Patrycja prepared well for motherhood. She read a lot, joined mums’ groups on social media, visited forums. “When I look at families from our surroundings, I have the impression that in our case, fewer things are random: from the choice of a doctor or vaccinations, through the purchase of a car seat and a high chair, to nappies. We read about everything, consult with others. We try to choose more educational toys, but also not obsess over these things. Kasia doesn’t just have wooden blocks”, Patrycja laughs. “For the first year, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t give her sweets. Now there are all sorts of new flavours, she needs to explore them. We’ve introduced fixed meal times, we pay more attention to what we eat. We buy a lot of organic products, for example.”
Patrycja and her husband work in corporations, their careers develop in a natural rhythm, without chasing after promotion, and they have a stable financial situation. “This is a great comfort in the context of raising a child. We provide Kasia with everything as long as we can afford it. We want to give her the stars and the moon, and at the same time we make sure that she does not think that everything grows on trees”, says Patrycja. She admits that her work is important to her, but she no longer stays after hours, which used to happen regularly. “I’m off at 5:00, and I run home at once to be with Kasia as long as I can. I count every minute.”
She’s less scrupulous about counting the passing of time. “Our pace of life didn’t allow me to realise that I was thirty-nine years old. When, while walking Kasia to the nursery, I pass mums in their twenties, I don’t feel that I stand out among them.”
If there are bitter thoughts, they are related to fears for the future. “My mum is 64 years old and has been battling cancer for nine years. This is a personal tragedy for me. And yet, before she got sick, she sent me to university, saw me get married, prepared me for life. When I get to 60, Kasia will only just be growing up. Sometimes I get sad that she may not have me by her side in important moments. Or that I’ll get seriously ill and she’ll have to deal with it at a very young age, and not as a mature woman”, says Patrycja. She and her husband focus on taking advantage of every moment with Kasia, they collect souvenirs for her, write letters, fill out books that document the child’s first tooth, first steps, first words. And Patrycja also runs the KorpoMama profile on Facebook. She describes her experiences related to pregnancy and motherhood so that Kasia can read it one day.
A different balance of power
Beata Redzimska lives near Paris. At the age of thirty-two, she gave birth to her first son and then two years later to her second son. She dreamed of having a daughter, but couldn’t get pregnant for another seven years. “It became my obsession. I would look at mature French mothers and I got caught up in the thought that since they are giving birth in their 40s, maybe it’s not too late for me, either”, she says. She was thirty-nine years old when she gave birth to Ania and two years later Ava was born.
“In France, it’s a natural age to have babies. Until the age of 43, a woman is entitled to a so-called PMA, i.e. medical assistance at the expense of the state, related to stimulation of ovulation or IVF”, she explains. Beata did not have to use such support. “I also like the fact that prenatal test results are sent to the doctor, not to the mother. Thanks to this, there is a chance for receiving possible bad news in a more empathetic form.”
Both of Beata’s daughters were born healthy, by spontaneous delivery. Now she feels more competent in the role of mother than a dozen years ago. “I don’t know if it’s a matter of age or experience. There are probably women for whom motherhood comes naturally, but I had to work it out for myself”, she says. “I was more organised with the girls, but also more sensible. When I was pregnant with my first son, I watched French TV shows in which babies don’t cry or get in the way. I thought I’d have plenty of time to myself on maternity leave. I was planning on doing some training course. When I gave birth, my husband and I used to wait on the baby hand and foot all the time. Now I was 100% focused on my daughters, I didn’t want to spread myself too thin. I was also aware of my age and knew I had to take care of myself. I slept when the baby slept. Paradoxically, in this late motherhood, I felt less tired than as a younger mother.”
Beata says that small children are very motivating, for example when it comes to physical activity. “We go to the park after school, we play tag, the girls drag me outside to play football”, she says. “If I only had my sons who are now teenagers, I’d probably be sitting on the couch more.”
She feels better now than she did twenty years ago. “In my mid-thirties I was getting sick a lot, I was tired all the time. Ever since I changed my diet, I’ve had more energy. I prefer today’s version of myself.”
She often finds herself comparing herself to other mums. “Most of those women whose children go to school with Anna and Ava are younger. I wouldn’t want the girls to be ashamed of me. When I was born, my dad was forty-one. I remember one time my schoolmates said my granddad was looking for me”, she recalls. “I look in the mirror and see that I’m getting more wrinkles, but I try to stay in shape. It’s an uphill walk to school. On the way, we often overtake thirty-somethings.”
When Beata was thirty-three years old, her mother died. “It makes me worried that I might not be with my daughters for long either. But I hope that when my husband and I are gone, their brothers will be their support”, she says.
She notices much more advantages of late motherhood than disadvantages. “Above all, you are more appreciative of this gift of fate, torn out at the home stretch”, she states. “The baggage of life experiences makes you gain some perspective, but at the same time allows you to enjoy many things a lot more. And knowing the limitations of age makes you distribute your forces more sensibly.”
A dryer on a CD
For Monika Wyderka-Chodak from Gdynia the decision about motherhood was postponed due to the lack of a suitable partner. For eleven years she was stuck in a relationship with no prospects. When she met her current husband, they would ask each other specific questions about the future from the very beginning. At the age of thirty-five, she gave birth to Norbert and three years later to Kornelia.
“I didn’t think much about genetic diseases or complications. I know that at an advanced age, the risk is greater, but this can also happen to young mothers. We were more afraid that I wouldn’t get pregnant. We managed it very quickly”, says Monika. “I felt fantastic, I worked till the sixth month. During the second pregnancy, however, spotting appeared early on. We were at a friend’s place in Wrocław, and I went to a gynaecologist who said that I would either carry to term or not. I was surprised that the doctor would talk to me like that, but at the same time it scared me so much that I was on sick leave until the birth, even though everything went fine afterwards. I have come to the conclusion that age obliges me to take more care of myself.”
She and her husband went to childbirth classes. The host spoke beautifully about spontaneous delivery and breastfeeding. Monika had two C-sections, and she fed the kids from a bottle. She’s glad she chose a private clinic for the birth. “Because of my age and possible complications, we wanted to feel more comfortable”, she says.
According to Monika, late motherhood does not guarantee better preparation for the birth of a child. “We stressed out about everything, I was short of breast milk, we used a lactation consultant. I didn’t realise that a baby could cry day and night. I imagined an idyll, strolls with a pram. And I would open the door and my son would start screaming at the top of his lungs. I would run around the block with the pram to give him some air, and I was embarrassed that he was screaming so much. Other mothers were sitting relaxed on benches”, says Monika. It went better with their daughter in as much that when she cried after eating milk, they turned to soy almost immediately. When she was awake, they played her a CD with a recording of a dryer. In their son’s case it didn’t work, he didn’t accept the deception, so the dryer would sometimes be on half the night.
Although she and her husband had shortcomings in organisational matters and life was different from what they had imagined, Monika thinks that mentally they were prepared for children perfectly. “We used to travel a lot and go to parties, concerts, visit friends. Nowadays staying home with the baby is not a punishment or a sacrifice”, she says. “My husband and I are both financially and professionally stable, so we were able to devote a lot of time and attention to our children from the beginning. It’s also easier for us to provide them with good development conditions. For example, we could afford to send them to a private kindergarten or to a social school. They can take advantage of a lot of extra-curricular activities, try new things.”
Monika confirms that a baby is rejuvenating. “When it’s time to run around or go on a bike ride with the kids, I have to push myself, even if I’m knackered. Sometimes on Fridays, when I’m tired after a whole week, I say I can’t do it, but I promise them a wonderful Saturday. And I keep my word.”
The children have also rejuvenated Monika and her husband socially. “We are among parents of a similar age who have small children. I also like to surround myself with young girls with vigour. I do ten different things at once, they do twenty. I’m forty-five years old and many of my female peers are already very settled. To me, they’re more like grandmothers than mothers.”
She gets pessimistic from time to time. “I wonder if I will live to see my children get married or if I will become a grandmother. But I decided to live in the moment and enjoy the fact that it’s great now. My husband and I are young enough to give them a lot more.”
Everything can wait
Beata Rejmer from Wrocław gave birth to Szymon a month before her 40th birthday. She also has a 21-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son from a previous marriage. It took her six years to talk her current partner into having a baby. Then they prepared themselves physically and medically. “We did some tests, I went to the gynaecologist and the endocrinologist, we both started taking vitamins and folic acid”, she says. “I had no problem getting pregnant, but during the pregnancy I felt worse than with my previous pregnancies. In the first few months, I swelled up a lot. It was the summer holidays, it was hot, maybe that’s why. At the end, I started to suffer from sciatica, varicose veins, thrombocytopenia.” Beata decided it was better to be safe than sorry and went to her gynaecologist every time something bothered her. Even more often than once a month. She gave birth through a C-section because the baby weighed 10 pounds.
She’s raising Szymon in a spirit of closeness. Unlike her older sons, she admits. They certainly were not deprived of tenderness and they built a strong bond, but now there’s more peace and a stronger focus on the baby. “I have a lot of patience, I let things run their natural course. My son is two and a half years old, and I’m still breastfeeding him. I’ll wean when he’s ready. With older children, I took the advice to smear pepper on my breasts”, she says. “There’s also no rush to wean him off wearing nappies. I stopped following the rule that a child must be able to say they want to pee before the age of two.”
When she gave birth, her social life changed considerably, but Beata has no sense of loss. “With our first children, we were constantly trying to steal time. We wanted to put them to bed quickly so we could go out to our friends or watch a film. And now I’m in no hurry. Everything else can wait. My bonds with my girlfriends have loosened up a bit, but we’ll probably rebuild them at some point”, she says. Although she rarely goes out, she does not feel lonely, because her partner, adult daughter and teenage son are also at home. “I know that Szymon is my last child and that I have to squeeze as much as possible out of this motherhood. And I’m trying not to screw it up.”
Beata does not work professionally, she helps her partner in running the company. “When professional issues and finances are stabilised, it’s much easier to raise a child. And you can certainly give them more”, she points out.
It’s not often that she runs out of energy. “But our games are different, Szymon isn’t particularly spontaneous, he likes rituals. We read a lot, we play with blocks, do jigsaw puzzles. I used to have no patience to sit at one place like that, and the other kids got bored quickly, too”, she says.
Beata has a lot of friends who gave birth around the age of forty. “When we made the decision to have a baby, no one was surprised, everyone supported us”, she says. “Szymon has certainly motivated us to take better care of our health and fitness. But I’ve always felt young.”
Author: Izabela O'Sullivan
Illustration: pexels.com
The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 28 August 2021
