“The recent amount of publicity being given
to older women seeking babies has had a complicated effect in my near and
extended family. I have a daughter of 11 from my first marriage and my husband
has grownup children from his. He is now 59 and I am 42. We have been trying to
have a child together with no luck for the last few years and are now
considering “hi-tech help”. However, both his children and my daughter have
been making disparaging comments about my age and my daughter has become
extremely rude to me these last few weeks. I feel they have all ganged up
against me”
Mrs D.
No wonder Mrs D is feeling under pressure.
Trying to have a baby and being unsuccessful for several years is difficult all
by itself. Even though she and her husband have had the satisfaction of
bringing children into the world in their previous marriages this relationship
is not currently biologically fruitful. She is also experiencing all the ups
and downs that come with extended families as well as having strong concerns
about age. Indeed, Mrs D has placed the media interest in older women giving
birth at the top of her list.
There has been major media and public
interest in how far science can push back the boundaries of female
reproduction. Specific media interest focused on a woman of 59 - a woman almost
old enough to be Mrs D’s mother. Whilst women over 40 do face a slightly higher
risk in pregnancy and childbirth Mrs D’s actual age is not objectively
shocking. Why then is she making such an issue about it?
Dr John Byng Hall, Family Therapist, comments
“It could be that Mrs D is secretly disparaging of the idea of having another
child at her age and the children are saying it for her. If children make
disparaging comments about parents but you are confident about the issue
involved you shrug it off. It only really hurts if you feel it. I wonder what
is seen as an appropriate age to have children within this family. At what age
was Mrs D’s mother when she gave birth? However, I wonder why both Mrs D and
society at large focus first on the mother’s age when the greatest risk for the
prospective D child is that Mr D would not be there as the child grew up”.
Indeed, could the children focusing on Mrs
D’s age be a diversionary tactic to cover-up possible anxiety about Mr D? At 59
Mr D is the same age as the woman who has been the focus of such mixed media
attention. Should the D’s succeed in giving birth to a child within the next
year, by whatever means, he will be 70 when the child is 10. What is the state
of his health and what state of health were his parents in when they brought
him up? Dr John Byng Hall adds that if the Ds have had the experience of seeing
their own parents deteriorate between 42 and 59 perhaps with a stroke or
dementia, the relatively young ages of 42 or 59 could be additionally worrying.
However, psychotherapist Elizabeth Campbell who specialises in treating
individuals with fertility problems also points out that in some cases people
in this age range have another baby in order to deny the reality of getting
older.
Dr Alan Cooklin, Consultant in Family
Psychiatry, Marlborough Family Service agrees that the issue of age is more likely
to be a parental preoccupation. “Your daughter of 11, in being more difficult
at the moment, is probably trying to find an appropriate framework in which to
complain about the altered relationships she sees incumbent on the possible
beginning of a new family. She has probably had a period on her own with you
and is used to being your first line confidante and protector. She will need to
learn anyway that the kind of love you can have for a man-your new husband-is
different from what she needs and probably wants.
She also will need to learn that what you
could give to a baby is quite different to what she as an 11 year old and soon
an adolescent can enjoy. She and the grown-up children will also eventually
need to discover, if there is a new baby, that they can have an enjoyable place
in relation to a new baby and in relation to the new family that can be
formed.”
Will there be and should there be a new baby?
As Mr & Mrs D are capable of producing children is there an emotional
component in their current infertility? Do they feel disloyal to their existing
children in considering a further one and is their infertility a proof of this?
It is certainly likely that their children are considering such a possibility
as disloyal. As Dr Byng Hall comments - “All the D. children, regardless of
age, will be in the same classical position of feeling put out by the parents
wanting other children. Weren’t they good enough? Wasn’t it enough that they
had had them? Alternatively, is the new child a strategy to cement a strained
relationship and are the children therefore the wise ones in asking whether
such a new venture is a sensible one?”
What about the strains of fertility
treatment? Psychotherapist Elizabeth Campbell comments “The whole area of
modern fertility treatment is a complex one where both the physical and
emotional needs of the individual, couple and family should be taken into
consideration as well as the welfare of the potential child or children. The Ds
also need to consider the implications on their family of fertility treatment.
Many people find such treatment very invasive and hard to cope with. People who
get such treatment feel they are on an emotional seesaw where there are often
great hopes but also disappointments. Counselling or therapy can help with the
losses and disappointments and in finding a way forward to seeing something
else in their lives or coming to terms with not having a baby when the
treatments are not successful. Another implication for the D’s is that some
clinics would not take them on because of their age- different clinics have
different cut-off ages. A professional could help them consider the meaning to
them of having a baby at this stage in their lives. Many fertility clinics have
their own counsellors. “