Geriatric Mummy, Author at Musings from a Geriatric Mummy

To NCT or not to NCT

If you haven’t heard about NCT, it’s the National Childbirth Trust. You pay for several sessions later in your pregnancy to prepare you for birth and the early days of parenting.

I say Do it! Do it! Do it!

This is not necessarily for the course itself. I did get a few good pointers out of it, but as my delivery was always going to be a caesarean, I really learned how potentially painful and exhausting the whole birthing process was going to be for my fellow class mates.

The reason to do it is for those fellow classmates.

Mine were a fabulous group of people who I now call friends. Through the early days of feeding at 3 am and not knowing how to deal with colic to sharing first day of school photos, our WhatsApp group has been a huge lifeline. I remember a friend of mine had her first child in 1999 and her companions during night feeds were the residents of the Big Brother House. How grateful am I that technology has moved on so much, so fast. I never felt alone as there was always someone else available on the other end of the chat.

So do it, sign up to NCT (or other similar groups) to meet people who are going through all the same firsts as you and will understand, sympathise, share discoveries and advice and be friends for life.

I need(ed) my mummy

I don’t believe it matters how old you are; being a first time mum (or dad) is scary. We failed on the practicalities from the beginning! The nurses on the ward wouldn’t let us go until they had fixed the fastenings in the baby car seat.

No matter how much you read before hand, that first night away from the doctors, nurses and sensible people who know about babies is absolutely terrifying and what made it far worse for me was the gaping hole where my mum should have been.

My mum passed away in a busy hospital ward with my sister and I holding her hands the Saturday night before David was born. When I went in for my caesarean on the Wednesday, I was grieving and scared. I can’t remember much about the delivery but I do remember the surgeon saying afterwards that she hoped the safe delivery of my boy would help. It did help. I was distracted and full of those positive hormones whose name I forget. However, my body was not coping so well and I was not producing enough milk.

Dried flowers from a bouquet sent to me after David was born. They were from my mummy.

The health visitor came for the routine check up three days later. David had lost more than 10% of his birth weight and I was a sobbing mess. She sent my husband and I to the community maternity centre where I sobbed and mourned for two days and nights while the fabulous midwives made me tea and toast and taught me how to pump, feed and subsidise my breast milk. If my mum had been here, then she would have been with me at home. she could have shown me how to do the things I learnt from the midwives. She could have reassured me that I was doing okay.

David is now 5 and I still feel that loss. Every time he reached a milestone, every time he did something that made me laugh, every proud and happy moment (as well as the scary ones) I want to share them with my mum but I can’t and so I continue to grieve. At times I have felt hugely angry at her which I am sure is normal but feels a bit unfair.

I talk about her and my dad to David. They would have loved him.

How did I become a first time parent at 47? Part 2

Using an egg donor is not for everyone. Fundamentally, as far as science is aware at present, my son does not have any of my DNA. Does that mean he is not my son? To some people, the answer will be yes.

When I first spoke to my mother about the possibility of using a donor, she suggested that I might feel he wasn’t really my son. I have never felt like this. As far as I am concerned, I borrowed some cells from an incredible donor. These were mixed with my husband’s sperm, implanted in my womb and miraculously I grew a baby. Our son.

I am a member of The Donor Conception Network which has some amazing information, links and groups. If you are considering donor conception, do have a look at their website. We joined after David was born as my key concern was how it would impact on David that he was conceived using a donor. I talked to a mother of two donor conceived children through the network and took on board her advice to make it a familiar part of David’s life. He wouldn’t grow up and be shocked to discover that some of his genes come from elsewhere.

We have two books that I read fairly regularly to him. My favourite is two rabbits who (ironically for rabbits!) couldn’t have babies so another rabbit mummy gave them a special gift. A cell that was put with daddy’s seed into mummy’s womb and grew into a fabulous baby boy (rabbit!!). David knows that he isn’t a rabbit but he also knows that he was grown in mummy’s womb with the help of lots of doctors, a lovely donor and bucketfuls of love.

If you would like to ask me anything about our route to becoming parents, please do contact me.

Rufus 1, 2 and 3…..

I turned our photo calendar page today and there were David and Rufus. Actually, to be exact – there was Spare Rufus.

Rufus is David’s favourite. His best friend. He was kindly given to David by a very good friend of mine and I can only thank her that it is a fairly common model. Rufus has a tag on his bottom which is very important for the intricacies of thumb sucking.

Original Rufus has been lost and found at a number of soft play centres but on one occasion, despite personally crawling through all the tunnels and traps for people with larger hips, he was not found. David was devastated. Pippin the cat, purchased in the gift shop on the way out simply did not cut the mustard.

I was able to obtain a new Rufus on a well known online auction website but before he arrived, the soft play centre called. Rufus had emerged from the depths of the ball pool. We told David that daddy had taken Ella (our dog) to sniff him out and she had succeeded. The tears ended, thumb was back in and tag stroking recommenced.

Original Rufus’ tag fell off. The tears were ready, I could see how distraught David was about to become when miraculously the tag was repaired and Spare Rufus stepped up to the plate.

Spare Rufus’ tag didn’t last so long. Maybe the tag stroking had become more frenetic or it was a slightly poorer quality Rufus but I had become an expert Rufus handler. Rufus the third was already in place and ready to go.

David has all the Rufuses now and they carry their names with pride while Rufus 4th sits in my cupboard quietly awaiting his turn.

Lego solar system and trump noises

Yesterday evening was potentially a reflection of gender difference.

David came home from school and asked if I could make the solar system from Lego with him. Sounds like fun I said.

We were busy identifying potential Lego pieces to float in the Kuiper Belt when my husband came to join us and started to play some music on his phone. He then discovered that you could play trump noises on the phone and that was it. Solar system abandoned and both boys rolling on the floor laughing.

Husband noted my grumpy face and pointed out that David needed both experiences to become a rounded individual. Mmmmm.

How did I become a first time parent at 47? Part 1

My husband and I had tried 3 lots of IUI when I was 40 and these had been unsuccessful. We had accepted the fact that we would not become parents.

Every time a friend or work colleague told me that they were pregnant there would be the same familiar surge of grief for something we would never experience. A lost child before they existed.

Then, when I was 45, my doctor referred me for a cancer check. This is a very speedy & scary process. Within two weeks I had been scanned and checked and the mass in my stomach declared benign. In fact, it wasn’t in my stomach, it was actually a huge fibroid. Inside 8 months, the fibroid was removed. It weighed about 1KG so I felt a lot lighter! I was chatting to the consultant afterwards and she heard that we had tried unsuccessfully for children. She worked at a private fertility clinic and suggested we make an appointment. That’s when our lives turned around.

Our consultant told me that my eggs would be pretty useless by this age but that we could consider an egg donor.