Birth Story: My Experience As An Older Woman Getting Pregnant

I wanted to tell my own birth story, I wanted to have something to contribute when my friends complained about the motherhood experiences, lazy househelps, and clueless husbands. My dream was to take my newborn to church and have him/her baptized and named. But try as my husband and I could, we weren’t able to conceive.

And when I say we tried, I mean we tried to conceive. We saw doctors, consulted herbalists, pastors, all kinds of orthodox specialists… All to no avail. Every test we did indicated we were both fertile, and ought to be able to conceive. 

My husband’s family began pressuring him to try impregnating another woman. But he wanted to have children with me. So I got branded a witch. Apparently, I had bewitched their son.

We tried adoption once, but after a long tedious process, when we were almost at the finish line, the administrator tried to extort a large sum of money from us, and when we didn’t pay, they threw our application away. So we gave up on that too.

If I tell you the things I’ve done out of desperation in the hopes of having a child, you will be amazed. I was a nurse, I knew the science behind it, but when it came to my personal fertility situation, common sense departed from me. I have sat in the rain overnight, slept at a cemetery and traveled from Accra to the Northern Region just to fetch a cup of water from a river to drink.

Eventually my husband sat me down and asked me to stop. We had tried everything. In those days surrogacy wasn’t a thing as it is now. We had done all we could, be it science or spirituality, we just couldn’t conceive. We resolved to live and enjoy life as best as we could. And that is just what we did. We focused on our careers, and started and ran successful businesses. With time, we realized we were both wanderlusts, and travel became our thing!

Nineteen years into our marriage, I fell ill. It was nothing like I’d ever experienced before, I was cold, dehydrated and exhausted all the time. And I lost my appetite for everything except oranges. 

I saw the doctor on my shift, and she ordered some tests, malaria included. They all came back negative. Then she ordered another round of tests, and this time she added pregnancy, just to rule it out she said. All the tests came back negative but one.

I was pregnant. Me. I was having a baby at 44. My husband was over the moon, and me, I was just floored!

If you think pregnancy is hard on the mind and body, let me tell you about older women getting pregnant; it is arduous!

For older women getting pregnant, first your body reminds you it is past the child making stage and has no intentions of cooperating. And then science also reminds you of all the risks of having babies in your 40s.

Some of the risks of having a baby in my 40s, I told, were that:

1. There is a higher risk of gestational diabetes. The risk of developing high blood pressure during pregnancy is higher.
2. There’s a greater risk of premature birth and/or having a baby with a low birth weight and associated medical complications for the baby.
3. The chance of having a C-section goes up. After age 35, there’s a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications that might lead to a C-section delivery. My doctor told me from the onset to forget any dreams of waiting for my due date, going into labor and having a vaginal birth, I was going to have a c-section. Period.
4. The risk of chromosomal conditions is higher. Babies born to older mothers have a higher risk of certain chromosomal conditions, such as Down syndrome.
5. The risk of chromosomal conditions is higher. Babies born to older mothers have a higher risk of certain chromosomal conditions, such as Down syndrome.
6. The risk of pregnancy loss is higher. The risk of miscarriage and stillbirth increases with age.

 

I developed hyperemesis gravidarum, which is what had made me sick to begin with. Hyperemesis gravidarum is like the headmaster of morning sickness, and it stayed throughout the pregnancy. And then later in my pregnancy, I developed preeclampsia which is a kind of high blood pressure, except it is more dangerous and exclusively reserved for pregnant women. Thankfully all the other risk factors pertaining to the baby didn’t happen.

After nineteen years of waiting, wanting and yearning, you’d think I’d be able to enjoy my birth journey. I didn’t enjoy it. I endured it. And then there were the insensitive comments by family and friends. The most hurtful of all was, “Abrewa pemfo,” translates to, “Pregnant Old woman.”

It was distressing to say the least but my husband was solidly behind me. We counted time by weeks; pregancy week by pregnancy week. And we hung on to hope and prayed.

At thirty six weeks of getstation, I underwent a cesarean section and had my beloved son. My goodness, he is perfection! When I first saw him, he was nestled in his father’s arms, and they both looked so peaceful, my heart swelled with pride. But that feeling didn’t last, because the ‘baby blues’ set in hard and fast!

First the CS incision took forever to heal, and I was in constant pain. My bones and joints constantly reminded me that having babies in mid-forties isn’t ideal. And then the mood swings set in; at first I was told feeling emotional after giving birth was fine, and that it would pass. But it didn’t. I got moodier and moodier.

After almost two decades of waiting, I wanted to be elated, happy beyond comprehension, and yet there I was, sad as ever and jealous of my husband for enjoying his own child. I was unable to control my emotions and became irrational. 

And by the way I had help. I had all the help in the world. My sister-in-law was there, and so was my mother-in-law. My dear husband was present, physically and emotionally. And we had a househelp to do all the household chores.

It just happens that my hormones were out of control and I needed medical help.

My body couln’t even produce milk; I couldn’t breastfeed my child, and it made me feel like such a failure. I felt so inadequate and guilty, and I began to think I was failing my son. What mother is unable to provide nutrition for their newborn? I felt unworthy of him. And that’s when I had an overwhelming urge to end my life to spare my son the shame of a mother like me.

But my doctor, whom I worked with and who was a friend to my family, had talked with me concerning postpartum depression, my mental health, and she had warned I would likely be a good candidate, considering all the trauma I had endured in my life concerning conception. So I called her and said, “I just had thoughts of ending my life.”

She had my husband take me to her consulting room immediately. And I was diagnosed with postpartum depression.

The dreadful thing about mentall illness is that, to make rational decisions, you need your brain. But when you’re mentally ill, that brain is broken, so the faculties that help you be rational aren’t working right. That is when you need another person to help regulate you. 

The doctor gave me medication to treat my postpartum depression, and she set up counseling sessions with the clinical psychologist at the hospital for me. I also received care from a sleep therapist, who helped me manage my sleep patterns for better rest.

It took some doing, but gradually I came out of the woods. And I began to enjoy my baby; I smiled again, felt good about my body and got back to my normal self.

My son is eleven now. And I thank God for him everyday.

So that is my birth story. A story of how I had my son after years of wanting and waiting; A story of the mental, physical and emotional complexities of pregnancy, childbirth and life itself; A story of midlife motherhood.