30 Something Else
Sixty-year-old new mother will need strength of spirit
Chrissy Gerity

"You're dreaming," I told myself, reaching for the remote to shut off the television. I figured it must be one of those dreams I have when I'm half sleeping, half listening to the nightly news. I have this issue with not wanting to shut the television off at night, feeling like I might miss out on something interesting. Sure enough, last night was something I would've missed, and I wasn't dreaming.

Less than two hours away from where I lay in my bed, a new mother was resting in her hospital bed at Hackensack University Medical Center, after having just given birth to twin boys, via a noontime-scheduled cesarean section. While she has not broken a record of being the oldest woman to give birth, she is the oldest woman to give birth in the United States. At 60 years old, just thinking of having more children should have made the books.

I just had to get a look at this woman. Leaving the television on, I sat up in my bed, blinking the sleep from my eyes, and tried to focus on the new mother. There she was, with her long blond hair, tanned skin, and two infant boys in her arms, telling the world via television, how great an experience it had been.

Really? A great experience? At 60? Oh, please, do tell me more. Like, what was she thinking on the night of conception? Or was she thinking at all? Does she have any other children? How does the father of the babies feel about it? Why would she want a child at her age? And most curiously of all, wasn't there anything better to do?

Apparently, not only was this a planned pregnancy, the couple was actually hoping for twins! That briefly brought the "aw, how romantic" factor in for me, but isn't that what something like renewing your vows are for - to celebrate your love for each other after so many years of marriage? Or what about the children you've had when you were younger? Children who are now old enough to make the babies for you - those little darlings you call grandchildren?

Actually, the couple, who has been married for 38 years, do have three older children - a 33-year-old son who worries that Mom won't have any spare time for his own children when, and if, he decides to have his own; a 29-year-old daughter who thinks Mom should be "living in Florida having a good life," and a 6-year-old son, whom Mom and Dad thought needed a sibling closer to his age. One night, while doing what most couples their age do - enjoying a night aboard a cruise ship - this woman was inspired by a magazine article she was reading about women having children in older years, and decided to try again.

After unsuccessfully trying to conceive on their own, the couple did manage to get in some travel time - all the way to South Africa; where, instead of a trip through the safari, they made their way to a thoroughly researched medical center, where she underwent in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

I used to think of 60 as being old, being a grandmotherly age. My own father was in his early 50s when I was born (though my mother was quite a few years younger), and we always got the looks and the questions - "Is that your grandpa?," "Would your granddaughter like a lollipop?"

My younger brother and I even got questioned by the guards at the border when my father took us to Canada for the weekend - "Is this man really your grandfather, not your father?"

While I loved my dad with all my heart, I thought of my father as an "old man," who was out of shape and couldn't walk up the steps without losing his breath and having to use an oxygen tank. He was in and out of the hospitals often, constantly reminding me that "someday" was going to come too soon. He died at age 73, when I was only 22.

In all fairness to this couple, who are obviously thrilled with the new additions to their family, I don't know what their health history charts look like, aside from her parents living to 80 and 92 years old. Like most parents of any age do, the couple wish for their children to be "happy, confident, and healthy."

This mom made it through the grueling, usually toll-taking months of the pregnancy and came out smiling. If she was able to tough that out, changing two sets of diapers, managing two sets of, well, everything, then chasing after toddlers in the next couple of years is probably do-able, too. After all, it can't be so much the physical aspect of it, but rather the mental aspect of it - a mind and spirit strong enough to believe in her abilities to be a new mother at her age, are a mind and spirit strong enough, period.

- Chrissy Gerity, a Metuchen resident, is a staff writer for Greater Media Newspapers.