"IN PRAISE OF OLDER PARENTS"

In case my last post ‘Down Syndrome and how it happens’ caused  undue stress to anyone who find themselves in this category, I am following up with this post, to bring about some encouragement and validation to all who are thinking of starting families at a later stage in life and the rest of us who are already on this path.

According to a Statistics Canada Report, although it is well known that older women who conceive are at increased risk for miscarriages, stillbirth and babies born with birth defects, these babies are generally just as healthy as those born to younger women.

The report went on further to say that these children are often more advanced, saying their first words and taking their first steps earlier than those born to women in their mid to late twenties.

Another article ‘In praise of older Parents’, looks at the benefits of being older parents which includes the fact that older parents are usually more established in their careers and are generally more financially secure by this point in their lives and are also more equipped to manage the changes that having children bring.

Older parents also say that they are now more patient with their children more than they would have been when they were younger.

Of course, like everything else, there is a flipside to all things good. Many older parents will find that they are mistaken for grandparents and that can cause some discomfort if you are not secure in who you are. From experience I know that keeping up with toddlers later in life is somewhat of a challenge and these kids somehow seem to need your attention more.

All in all, I strongly believe that a child that comes to us at any age in our lives is such a blessing and once we do not set ourselves up for failure by having ridiculously high expectations, the experience should be a rewarding and fulfilling one. Just to reiterate my closing point, our son is hyperactive, from he was in the womb (if I might say). When he was two years old, one of his uncles said to me, “I am in awe of how you keep up with him.” I guess he made that comment because I am not a mom in my 20’s or even 30's for that matter. I did not have to think too much or too long about my response to him, I quickly said, “I came into this with no high expectations” and I did not have to say anything else, he got the point.

Follow the links below for more information in this regard:-

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2008/09/24/older-mothers.html

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/pdf/Older_Parents.pdf

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DOWN SYNDROME AND HOW IT HAPPENS

Pregnant women who are 35 and over often have anxiety over whether their unborn babies will be born with any developmental problems.

I had this anxiety when I was pregnant with our son at age 37 and as my current pregnancy is nearing its end, I find myself having this anxiety even more.

For this post, I want to focus on the developmental problem, Down Syndrome, as somehow, this is the one that I am having more anxiety with.

Babies born with this condition are often conceived by older parents and are said to have an extra chromosome.

See more on how this condition happens, below, and check the following link for more in this regard.

http://down-syndrome.de/down9e.html

From the site

“The human body consists of tiny cells. In every cell, there is the genetic material that all human beings inherit from their parents. Every one of these cells has a nucleus consisting of about 100,000 genes. Every single gene is responsible for the synthesis of a certain protein, and this way it determines one characteristic of the body.

In an adult, only ten per cent of these genes are working at any particular time. But while the fetus (the unborn child) is developing in the uterus, almost half of the genes in all nuclei are active at the same time in order to control the cell functions during this important period of development. That’s why changes in the genetic material often result in the unborn child’s abnormal development.

The genes aren’t lying around individually in the nucleus; but are lined up (like beads on a necklace) on strings called chromosomes. Each human cell has 46 chromosomes, which make up 23 pairs of chromosomes. One chromosome of any given pair comes from the mother the second from the father. Every time a body cell divides, the newly produced cells receive the complete set of 46 chromosomes.

The only human cells that differ from this model are sex cells (egg and sperm): They include only 23 chromosomes, which means only half as many as body cells. During insemination an egg and a sperm cell unite to one single cell. This newly produced cell (the zygote) again has 46 chromosomes (23+23 = 46).”

I know deep down, how ever my child comes to me, I will love her just as I would any other child born to me, because of course, “first it is a child and having a developmental problem comes second.”








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A matter of the heart

“Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand.”
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Last Sunday a doctor known to perform late term abortions was gunned down while serving as an usher at his Church in Kansas. He was apparently murdered by an abortion activist who is said to be also anti-government.

Apparently this particular doctor and others who perform these kinds of abortions very often come under fire and have protests organized against them.

I was watching Anderson Cooper the other night on CNN and Anderson was talking to one of the colleagues of the murdered doctor, who apparently plans to take over his practice and he mentioned that only late term pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother or pregnancies with fetuses that were severely abnormal and could not survive outside of a woman’s body were actually aborted. Anderson specifically asked him if other abortions outside of this nature were also performed and he said flatly no.

Anderson interviewed one woman who opted to abort her pregnancy because her baby had a severe neural tube defect known as ‘anencephaly’ resulting in the absence of brain or skull. This woman and her family opted to abort their baby to cut down on the amount of pain and distress that they would have to face if they chose to prolong the baby’s life until its demise. This could not be done in her state however, because of laws against abortion, instead they advised her that she would have had to carry the pregnancy until her body ended the pregnancy or have the abortion done in another state that supported abortions of this nature. She was so outraged that she wrote a letter to then Senator, Barack Obama. I am a fan of President Obama, and I would love if he paid much attention to this letter and this woman’s issue and have the laws of the state rewritten to give women in this unenviable position, the right to make up their own minds about these kinds of pregnancies. After all, ‘only he who feels it truly knows.’

Another woman was interviewed who chose to keep her pregnancy even though her baby would not survive very long after birth, due to a chromosomal abnormality known as ‘trisomy 18’ which is incompatible with life. She said she and her family prefers that the baby goes the natural way, that is, die when it was time.

My problem then is, if this doctor only performs abortions of this nature, why then are people so outraged? I guess they probably know otherwise.

I am aware that there will always be people who abuse the system and make it bad for others so it is therefore up to the state and the doctors involved in this regard to ensure that this system is not used by others as a form of birth control but be reserved for people who actually have very good reason to use it.

My family could have been in this position in February 2006, when we learnt that our baby, which I was seven months pregnant with at the time, had a condition known as ‘hydrops fetalis’ where the fetus had too much fluid and also had multiple other disorders e.g. down syndrome and, severe heart conditions and was given only a 30% chance at life. Luckily for us, my body made our decision because the baby died in-utero, about a month after being diagnosed.
I know if our baby had not died, we would have been faced with the decision of whether to abort her and save her having to come into this world and live a compromised life or to let her live even when the odds were so high, and hope for the best.

I do understand the second woman’s position to have her baby go the natural way, but believe me, as per my experience, this wait is very difficult. I had to wait a whole month for tests to be done before I could choose which option I would take and this was painful. You go through a lot emotionally. First of all you are just waiting to hear someone come to you and say this is all but a cruel joke, your baby is fine. Then the days drag along and sometimes you feel like you cannot get up out of the bed to face another day. When those days came, I just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling and the walls, looking for some answer.

Everyone was praying for us, our families, friends, our church but one day I was lying there on my bed and it suddenly occurred to me that my baby was still sick, all those prayers were not answered and sure enough, our baby died shortly after. I even had a dream that our baby was born and was very weak but as each day passed, she became stronger and stronger. I said this to someone, who quickly cautioned me that dreams usually come in the exact opposite of their meanings. Understandably, I was crushed, because I was hoping that this dream would indeed become a reality.

If our baby had survived I believe we probably would have chosen the optioned that prolonged her life as long as possible because we were trying for a baby so long and would give anything to know that she would be around for as long as she could.

All in all, I just cannot understand not having the freedom to make these decisions yourself and instead have them made by someone else. This should clearly be a matter of the heart. Worst if they are allowed to be made by people who have never been faced with a situation as frightening and painful as this.

I therefore have no problem with these abortions if they are practiced within the parameters that they should.

My heart goes out to families having to make the very difficult decisions of whether to keep their precious little ones or not and for those who would give anything to becoming pregnant.

Keep clinging to hope.

Until next time