Advanced Maternal Age
BY MELISSA FACE
Photo Courtesy | Melissa Face
My obstetrician marked the box labeled “advanced maternal age” on my chart when I was pregnant with my daughter. Prior to that pivotal moment, everything else about the appointment had been routine: urine sample was normal, blood pressure was in an acceptable range, and my belly measurement was in line with my due date. I was gaining an appropriate amount of weight; my blood sugar wasn’t too high, and I was on track for another vaginal delivery. I had been through all of this before with my son three years earlier, but I was younger then. Much, much younger, apparently. Because now, just three years later, I was considered advanced.
I was thirty-four.
My past associations with the word advanced had been pleasant and included earning an advanced degree in human resources and taking advanced placement English when I was in high school. Those had positive connotations, but I wasn’t getting warm fuzzies from the word advanced on my patient chart.
“It’s standard,” my doctor said. “Women thirty-five and older are at risk for more complications and often require additional testing.”
“But I’m thirty-four,” I argued.
My doctor looked back at my chart and then at me, likely wondering if he really needed to explain that I would turn thirty-five before my baby was born.
During that visit, I learned that the testing my doctor mentioned only affords awareness. There’s no real benefit to birth defect screening other than knowing that something is wrong. And there’s no real benefit to labeling a woman’s chart with those three words.
My husband and I took a little longer becoming parents than some couples do. It wasn’t our choice to be older; it simply didn’t happen as quickly as we’d hoped. Out of three generations, I was the oldest in my family when I became a mom. My grandmother was eighteen when she had my mom; my mom was twenty-seven when she had me, and I was thirty-two when I had my son. I was advanced.
“But maybe,” I told myself when I was pregnant with my first child, “maybe this milestone delay will work to our advantage.” My husband and I had finished college and were established in our banking and teaching careers (I had even earned an additional endorsement and an advanced degree). We had taken a few big trips, lived in a different state, and adopted a dog. We had basked in our selfishness and enjoyed minimal responsibilities. We had done exactly what we wanted for six years of married life.
We were older. We were wiser. We were advanced. We were ready for parenthood.
Would you believe, though, that when babies are born, they care nothing at all about their mother’s age? Career achievements and life experience are also irrelevant to newborns. Celebrity moms, military moms, mothers with PhDs, and moms who have made incredible scientific discoveries – it doesn’t matter. Infants level the playing field for all new parents. We all feel like we’ve had the diaper pulled out from under us in the early weeks of motherhood. None of us are advanced.
Advanced maternal age didn’t separate me from the other moms in the maternity ward who massaged and squeezed their aching breasts and trusted the lactation consultants who assured us that a few drops of colostrum would satisfy a hungry infant. Advanced maternal age didn’t provide any added comfort when my child spiked her first fever in the middle of the night. “It appears to be viral,” the ER doctor told me. “Keep alternating Tylenol and Advil, and it should run its course.” I came home feeling more helpless than advanced.
Now that my children are eight and eleven, advanced maternal age has a different meaning. I notice it much more now than when I was carrying my child, recovering from labor, or nursing my newborn. It’s painfully obvious when I invite my children’s friends and their parents over for birthday parties. At some point in the conversation, the topic of age surfaces. Other parents complain about the difficulties of being in their thirties.
“Getting old is hard,” they say. “I can’t do things like I used to.”
“Tell me about it,” another parent echoes. “I’m a little sore from taking the boys on a four-mile hike last weekend. Next time we’ll stop after three.”
I take a seat at my kitchen table and position myself very carefully; I have lower back pain, tendonitis in my shoulder, and a stiff neck from falling asleep in my recliner. I feel very . . . advanced.
I wish I could trade in my advanced maternal age for advanced maternal insight. I wish I could see beyond our current family issue to know that the decisions we are making are going to impact our children in positive ways. I want peace and understanding. I want to know that my daughter will become a stronger reader and my son will adjust to middle school life. I want a guarantee of safety and an assurance that everything will turn out well. If only I could cash in a little age for a bit of precognition.
There was a time when I thought being mistaken for my child’s grandmother at a sporting event or in the parent pick-up line might be the worst thing that could happen. But in recent years, my former parenting stressors haven’t even shown up as blips on my maternal radar, and looking advanced in age rarely crosses my mind.
Most days, I cruise along comfortably in my own lane of motherhood. Sometimes I notice the newer, sportier moms as they pass me, but I’m usually focused on my own traffic jams and pit stops. The hazards are different and unexpected with each turn. I navigate them in the best way I can with the knowledge and experience I have. Sometimes I fail; sometimes I succeed, but neither outcome has anything to do with how old I am.
As for maternal age, in parenting and everything else, it really is just a number.
MELISSA FACE is the author of I Love You More Than Coffee: Essays on Parenthood and a 25-time contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. She writes regularly for Tidewater Family Magazine and Richmond Family Magazine and teaches English at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology. Follow Melissa on Facebook and Instagram @melissafacewrites.