Life Begins

’Tis the season when the thoughts of couples who read Malcolm Gladwell turn to procreation.
You know, if you want to birth a professional hockey player or a natural leader or such. This is
the last such season in our household because the big birthday is approaching in a few months.
Forty. Four-tee. Yikes.

I know; it technically doesn’t have to be the last time we think about creating another child, but
we’re worried enough about genetic anomalies and unexpected twins as it is, so delaying it any
longer would just be playing Russian roulette, as far as we’re concerned. So this is it. And yet
do you think we can make a bloody decision?

There’s nothing worse than having to face your advanced age and the idea that you’re down
to the last of the good eggs at the same time. I’m well aware that’s hyperbole, by the way;
there are plenty of worse things, but for me at this moment, it’s my whole world. I’m old (also
hyperbole, I suppose), and soon I’m going to be too old to create a healthy child. I am not happy
about this birthday. Not at all. It’s still seasons away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dread it well
in advance. So much for forty-before-forty lists and all the things I thought I’d be and have by
now. Time to adjust all those goals and dreams by a decade. Pitbull, ever the philosopher, does
say that forty is the new thirty. (He’s closer to the old thirty, so I’m not taking his word for it,
though.)

Are we wrong to put such a focus on age and childbirth? Science says no, but my heart says
yes. I’m finally mature enough (probably thanks to child number one) to raise a family. In my
early twenties, smug friends were getting pregnant because they claimed they wanted to do
it while they had the energy. Perhaps they’re right; I wasted all that energy not working on my
forty-before-forty list, but instead watching the same Seinfeld episodes over and over again.
However, I also biked through Europe, had two careers, made out with minor celebrities, wrote
a couple of books…guess it wasn’t a total waste. Will my early bird friends be doing these things
in their free-and-easy fifties? It’s entirely possible — but hey, they won’t look as good as I did.
Ha! Whatevs.

I guess the point is that I just have to decide to get over this age thing. There’s nothing I can do
about it, and there’s nothing I can do about the fact that maybe I didn’t spend the last twenty
years as wisely as I should have, but there is something I can do about the rest of it if I just stop
whining and start doing. And we just have to decide if we really really want another kid, not if we
should or shouldn’t or better try before it’s too late. Life begins whenever I decide it does.


-East End Mama

[image: baby by Lili Fjeld]