The Geriatric Mother
Good morning everyone⊠perhaps itâs the middle of the night for you⊠often is when you have an infant. In any case, I am delighted to introduce to you my blog which Iâm hoping might offer a few pearls of wisdom, a whole lavender bunch of comfort and maybe even some sensible discussion.
The Geriatric Mother - a strange name for a blog written by a 41 year old perhaps?  You might think so.  However, this is actually what they call us.  To explain⊠this blog is aimed at women who become mothers after the age of 35. When I was finally pregnant with my first daughter (more about that later), I found myself chatting to a midwife one day and her words left me with that phrase hanging in the air⊠âwell, because youâre a geriatric motherâŠâ
It didnât really matter what she said next.  I was sitting there thinking⊠what are you talking about!?  Iâm 37 or I was at the time.  Thatâs not geriatric.  I mean⊠seriously?
That singular descriptive word used to define how I came late to motherhood suddenly labelled me as someone who hadnât got my life together early enough or who was perhaps too old to think about having children at all.  âDonât worry,â she said, â37 is the average age for first-time mothers in the Richmond borough.  âYes,â I thought, âof course it is⊠weâve all been working!â
There it was though. It seemed that women who had prioritised career over family life or who simply hadnât pinned down one of those promiscuous city boys in our 20s, were now to be given their own category of⊠what was it⊠pity?  âPity you left it so late,â âpity you had a miscarriage,â âpity your eggs arenât harvesting⊠but you are a geriatric mother you know⊠it was always a risk.â  I donât know.  I donât like to put a victimâs hat on so perhaps âpityâ isnât the right word. To be sure, all the medical staff were extremely understanding and supportive⊠but with every failed IVF attempt and every passing month, I found I was unwittingly growing into the label theyâd given me and wishing even more, that Iâd started sooner. Â
You might wonder why, after two births, Iâm still musing over this.  Surprisingly, Iâve found that this unwelcome tag sits even more heavily with me, now that my children are here.  In truth, therein lies the purpose of my blog.  Four years later, I am a geriatric mother of two, absolutely warmed to the core of my soul by my children⊠but getting to this point meant giving up my career which was followed by a decision to leave the city of London and move home to rural Ireland.  Itâs a decision Iâll never regret, but itâs one which has left me with absolutely no idea of who I am beyond the worlds of my husband and gorgeous girls.  So here I am, hoping to reach out to you â you previously confident, successful, globe-trotting, public-speaking, energetic, professional, career-women; you geriatric mothers who gave it all up to have children and who now, because you donât want to work full-time while your babies are small⊠have absolutely no idea what to do next.  Perhaps like me, you have too many ideas but none of them are sticking.  Perhaps youâve decided to be a stay-at-home-mum but hate feeling as though you have to justify that all the time.  Perhaps, no matter how many business plans you write, social media identities you form or how much market research you do⊠ultimately going back to work, going back to the thing that has always defined you or a new thing that could create the ânew youâ⊠means leaving your precious babies to be taken to the beach by somebody else.  And whatâs the point in that? Â
I look forward to getting to know you, to sharing my ideas, to sending you links and to hopefully pulling you forward into the next chapter of your lives⊠with clarity and with confidence.  With any luck, in doing that, I might find some for myself too.
On a happy note⊠itâs snowing here today â yeehah!  Iâm off to build a snowman with my girls.
