The wrong side of 45 – and I've got a toddler

Photo credit: guardian.co.uk - All rights reserved

Sometimes I look back and wonder what strange, irrational urge took grip.

It began as a discreet niggle around three years ago but soon escalated, and I found myself, aged 43, desperate to have another baby.

Not just any baby, you understand, but a third child.

There was something about three, I reasoned – if such a thing was possible in my less-than-logical state.

Whereas two were too neat and ordered, three was chaotic, abundant, life-affirming.

We're too old for this, my husband says, maybe a little more wearily than usual, washing the dishes at the tail end of one particularly ragged Sunday evening.

Past 10pm and we can finally relax after the marathon that begins with settling our 16-month-old to sleep, followed by a more protracted battle to get our eight- and 10-year-olds upstairs.

If we drag ourselves to bed in the next half hour, the hope is the insistent cries of a toddler waking us at 6am will be more bearable.

This, then, is a taste of middle-age parenthood when you surf the fertility deadline maybe a little too far, squeezing in baby number three at 45.

This Pregnancy Over 40 story was found on TheGuardian.com
Read more: The wrong side of 45 – and I've got a toddler
Originally posted on July 21, 2012.

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Category: 43, 44