Reply to Please tell me your experience if you found out you were pregnant at 43

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[quote=Anonymous]I wish I had some helpful advice. All I can offer is my perspective as the 51 year old mother of three kids -- 17 (senior), 14 (9th grade), and 11 (6th grade). Our third was not planned -- we were in disagreement about whether we'd stop with 2 (DH's vote) and whether we should think about a 3rd (my vote). We had a birth control failure and although my husband was initially pole-axed by the news, he got behind the idea of having a third. She is a phenomenal kid and I can't imagine our life without her now.

But.

My husband travels Sunday - Thursday, I work full-time in a challenging professional position, I'm in full-blown perimenopause, and I'm absolutely drowning. Even though I have help from my mom 3-4 days a week, even though I have carpools, even though we have financial (although not unlimited) resources.

It is so. much. work. with older kids. Yes, you usually don't have to worry about them burning the house down or drowning in the bathtub, but between their emotional needs ("little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems") and the executive functioning it requires on my part to make sure they get to appointments, have rides to/from activities, can see their friends who don't live in the neighborhood, and oh by the way right now help my ADHD senior with a plan to choose and apply to colleges, I am underwater more often than not.

And although we make OK money, it wasn't always that way, especially with the times I was not working because it made sense for a variety of reasons to be home with the kids. So now we are facing 12 straight years of kids in college (with two double years) and although we are fortunate to have enough saved to mostly cover state school, we don't have enough to cover any more than that.

I am not saying this to state that you too will have these experiences -- your situation is different from mine. But if I had to go back in time to 39 year old me, I would be brutally honest about both the pros and the cons, and the resource limitations we face as a family. When kids are little, they aren't that much of a marginal additional cost (except for say daycare), but man does that change as they get older, and college is the 600 pound gorilla in the room.

I don't know if I would make a different choice knowing what I know now, but I didn't have the lived experience then I do now. I hear you about being conflicted despite being pro-choice. I have come to view the abortion issue as much more nuanced than either side would like to characterize it to be. If I'd gotten pregnant with #4 (despite the vasectomy DH got), I would have been in the same dilemma you're now in, because my DH would have thrown a fit, but I still would have had a hard time with a decision to have an abortion.

I'm sorry if this is not at all helpful. I guess my tl;dr point is that if at all possible, don't think of yourself right now as a 43 year old new mom. Think of yourself 10 years from now as a 53 year old mom with a 10 year old. Think of yourself as a 61 year old mom with a senior in high school and four more years to go in terms of paying for college. How do you feel about those future selves and what they can handle? If it seems like it's worth it -- and that your DH will get on board -- then go for it. That's not a wrong decision if it's the right decision for you and your family. If it doesn't seem like the right decision to proceed with the pregnancy -- it's 100% fine to make that choice as well.

I wish you all the best.

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