40-year-old mother
It never crossed my mind that I might not want to raise a toddler in my mid-40’s. In my 30’s, I always had this pride that I’m strong, I’m healthy, I can wait and have babies in my 40’s, no problem. I scoffed at the judgement that my pregnancy was called a “geriatric pregnancy” and had the attitude that it didn’t make a difference whether I was 30 or 40 when I became pregnant. And the truth is I could and I did have a healthy and successful pregnancy and birth. The part of the truth I didn’t see was would I actually want to use the massive amount of energy it takes to nurse a baby for a couple of years and mother a baby when my all the chemicals in my body were triggering a very different stage of life. I was entering my autumn and thinking like my life was an endless summer.
Now, here I am at 45 with a just turned three-year-old and an 11-year-old and I am seriously contemplating what I didn’t grasp in my 30’s. I can feel my body starting to change as I am navigating perimenopause. I can feel the massive amount of cumulative depletion that pregnancy, birthing, nursing for 6 1/2 years, and mothering young children has had on me and how my resiliency is most definitely slower than when I had my son at 34. In addition to the physical exhaustion, I feel the signature perimenopausal desires of quietude, restoration, and re-evaluation buzzing within. I feel my attention being drawn towards my contribution to humanity and the legacy I want to leave. My patience for passing hours at a time playing blocks on the floor is waning. My years of putting everyone else’s needs before my own are gone.
Though service and contribution have been at the forefront of my questioning for many years, there is a different tone to it in the past year or so. Most certainly there is a massive shift in consciousness happening on the planet right now that I believe is stoking the flames of my passion to give more fully myself to the world. The combination of this urgency to ride the momentum of the time and the yearning for deep levels of restoration and self-nourishment from 12 years of disproportionate giving feels like a life complete. Now add in young children on top of this and how does it work to embrace my autumn?
I don’t have answers. I am in the midst of this life experience right now. Though I absolutely adore my children and spending time with them, I long for the kind of slowness of living in a cabin fine tuned with the cycles of Mother Earth. My organs, my systems are yearning for deep nourishment. I am beginning to really understand, from an experiential place, why women have children at a younger age. I wish to give my full attention to the the magical moments of young childhood and at the same time the season of life I am transitioning into has a call beckoning to me like the strong pull of a full moon tide.
Because I chose to have a second child in my 40’s, I am having to be highly selective about where I put my energy and really make it count. I am complete trying to think I can do it all, all of the time. It’s exhausting and this decade is the time for us women to restore our reserves for the decades to come. Down with the hustle and in with the graceful winds of faith.
Whether you have young children or not, if your are in your 40’s, I invite you to find a way to slow down, soften, nourish, listen, pace yourself, and create. This is such a fertile time to reap the wisdom of 4 decades of life experience and share magnificent, meaningful creations. Let’s inspire as the long lasting burning embers of autumn we now are, rather than the raging bonfires of our summers past.
Dare to Desire!
Kristen