Preggy at forty?

My husband and I never planned to have another baby as we already have a girl (12) and a boy (10). Besides, I was already forty so getting pregnant was the last thing in my mind. But when my period was delayed for ten days as I have regular monthly cycle, I and my husband took a pregnancy test and I was really surprised with the result. Alas, it was positive! So I had to reprocess my mindset for I was not ready for it. It was very hard for me to tell my two children about it.

It was my husband who broke the news to them. I really knew that they didn’t want another addition to the brood as they often hear that having two children is ideal for family’s quality life and for population control. My daughter, the eldest, cried upon knowing it and my boy wished that it would be miscarried. So we had to explain to them both that if we had to have it aborted, it’s a sin against God and it’s a great risk. We told them that what if I would take some abortion pills and it would not be successfully aborted. We asked them if they would be able to accept a brother or a sister who has abnormalities because of the abortion pills. Both of them pondered upon it. Of course, we understood how they felt.

During my first weeks of conception, I was so scared of what people have been saying about the possibility of the baby to be born with defects due to my age. So I researched a lot from the internet and what have been said about pregnancy at 40 encouraged me. One article says, “Getting pregnant over forty is no big deal!” Its main point is that, with the advances of medicine and technology, there’s not much to worry except to take precautions. So I had to take extra care of my health all the more and saw to it that I had regular check-ups with my ob-gynecologist and take my prenatal vitamins daily.

It’s actually the reactions of the people around me especially at my workplace that bothered me at first. They were both worried of me and somewhat questioning why I still wanted a child as I already got two and I was already too old to have another one. So I had to explain that it’s unplanned but, of course, it’s not unwanted. I had to tell them, too, that we count it as a blessing.

When I finally gave birth recently, I felt a great relief upon seeing my baby so healthy and lovely. What’s my two kids’ reaction? They fell in love with their new baby brother at first sight that they would not almost leave him. My colleagues at work also welcomed him graciously and now some of them come to visit him very often. For me and my husband, he’s such a great bundle of joy given at a delayed time. Having a baby at forty (after ten years - unexpectedly!) seems like catching a plane ride just seconds before the final call for boarding.