Menopausal Moms

Iris Waichler:  Hi my name is Iris Waichler, I’m the author of the book Riding the Infertility Roller Coaster, A Guide to Educate and Inspire. I’m thrilled to offer segments in the upcoming weeks around infertility related issues.  I wanted to start today by talking about menopausal moms.  I know something about that because when I was one month shy of my 46th birthday I had my daughter through in-vetro fertilization. 

Statistics show that women are waiting a lot longer to have children.  I think we know that.  For people who are struggling with infertility that wait can feel a whole lot longer than they originally intended.  I thought it was worth while to take a look at some of the advantages of being an older parent because it sometimes goes hand in hand with having infertility treatment. I began throwing the covers off of my bed because of terrible hot flashes and I noticed that I was moodier than usual. 

My husband looked at me one day  and said so let me get this straight – I’ve got a wife going through menopause and a daughter going through the terrible two’s.  With fear in his eyes he looked at me and said just how long does menopause last?  I smiled and said it could be several years. 

Several moms I know are in a very similar situation - going through menopause while at the same time are changing diapers.  What impact does all this have as parents?  We bring all of our knowledge, our wonderful list of many experiences we got through our earlier life to our daughter now and know for sure that she will be a better and richer person for it. 

This would have not been the case if I had a child 15 or 20 years ago.  I don’t feel that I have anything left to prove to myself professionally and my husband doesn’t either.  My husband currently works from home and my daughter is most certainly emotionally and developmentally enriched by having both my husband and I there to spend a lot of time with her. 

To say the least it can be an interesting and challenging time for you as an older parent.  Having a child later in life can give you the opportunity to take time off of your career.  You may leave a job that you were not totally happy with and that time out can give you an incredible opportunity to be with your child and reexamine the career choices you made. 

You may decide to branch out in a different area or try something totally new in terms of a career.  For example, I began doing my volunteer work at resolve and started writing again.  It was an incredibility rewarding realm for me and I know for others, it might not of even happened if we didn’t have the addition of a child in our lives. 

Obviously not everyone has the option of choosing to stay at home on a full time basis; it’s a luxury to be sure.  Those of us who balance work and parenting are better equipped to do this job only because we are older, more experienced in terms of managing our time and trying to manage our lives. 

Over the years we developed an incredibly strong and loving community of friends in addition to our family.  This group of people is an integral part of our lives and the life of our daughter.  They are a cherished part of our world and one of the rewards of getting older that we love. 

It takes a long time to develop these special friendships and there presence in our lives nourishes us and makes us better people and ultimately I’m sure better parents.  Family involvement can be different for older parents.  Older parents, many of them are retired and more settled in their lives and they may have more free time. 

This may give them the opportunity to spend more time with their grand kids.  Grand parents have unique and wonderful things to offer our children and the relationship is a reciprocal one as well.  In my next segment I would like to talk about some of the challenges that face older parents and us menopausal moms.  I’d like to give you some information and hopefully some help in terms of how to deal with all that extra energy that we all know that our kids have and how we keep up with them.  Thanks so much for listening.