mothers over 50 Archives - Page 6 of 7 - Mothering in the Middle

Unearthing Diamonds at Midlife

by Lisa Garon Froman

Dear Reader: Please read author commentary and excerpts (in bold) from her new book, Tao Flashes.

For some reason, I’ve always been drawn to rocks. Maybe it’s my inner nerd, but I love the colors, the jagged edges, the imperfect lines, the untold stories and the history behind them. Even now as an adult, I collect rocks when I’m on vacation; I pluck them up from my path and save them as colorful mementos from my adventures. When I view them later, it’s like looking at a vacation photo. I am whisked back in time to the place, to the moment where I uncovered my piece of earth. And it brings me peace.

At midlife, I’m a lot more concerned about being peaceful than I was when I was younger. Caught up in the frantic day-to-day, gotta get it done–and get it done well–mode, I accepted a certain amount of chaos as the norm. As long as my son was happy, or safe, my happiness or peacefulness didn’t matter so much. […]

The PTSD of Adoptive Parents

by Michelle Eisler

Emotions are celebrated and repressed, analyzed and medicated, adored and ignored — but rarely, if ever, are they honored – Karla McLaren

I was driving to my doctor’s appointment when the morning radio host began talking about the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. I had awakened that morning feeling fragile, and chalked it up to needing to adjust my hormones. I felt thankful that I was heading to the doctor.

But, suddenly, at the mention of the earthquake, I began crying, and found it hard to stop. Here I was seeing a collage of pictures and images I had seen on CNN during the weeks we felt helpless as we fought to bring my daughter home. Something I thought I had moved beyond was suddenly rearing its ugly head. […]

On Failure, Forgiveness and Cutting Ourselves Some Slack

by Peg O'Neill, M.D.

Dear Reader: This is a reprint of a previous post.

We forgot about “Gotcha Day.” In the world of adoptive families, this is a significant faux-pas. “Gotcha Day” is the celebration of bringing a non-biologic child into the family. For us, it commemorates the day our family became whole; the day that my husband and I were given the gift of our precious child and entered the challenging world of raising multiple boys, with all the craziness, motion, joy and exhaustion.

For my older son, it was the day he became a sibling and began his journey as a big brother. For my adoptive son, though he was just six months old when he joined our family forever, it is akin to a birthday – a momentous event, a beginning, a symbol of who he is, at least in part. […]

Needing Our Mothers At Mid-Life

by Susan Paget

For those of you who are midlife moms to little kids, you might want to skip this blog because I’ve got another dose of reality to toss your way and I know you’ve already got enough on your plate.

If you’re still here, brace yourself.

There’s no expiration date to this “mom” thing. […]

Cyma Shapiro Interviews Liz Raptis Picco, Author of Stretch Marks

Dear Reader: I’m so pleased to present one of our own writers on the launch of her new book, Stretch Marks. Welcome Liz. I’m so happy to interview you and offer your story our readers. You are such a special person!

Q: Your book chronicles your nearly 20-year journey to motherhood – one littered with disappointing and painful experiences, repeated slammed-doors, and a litany of failed attempts at conceiving and adopting. Although you triumph in the end, the reader can’t help but feel helpless as they follow you along. I was so intensely struck by the sheer pain, grief, and loss you endured along the way. Can you talk more about your fervent desire and determination to become a mother?

A: Ironically, I hadn’t a desire to become a mother until my mid-thirties. After I’d married, then it was like lightening struck and everything else in life paled by comparison. It became a mission. I wanted into the inner circle along with my prolific mother, sisters, cousins, and friends. I’m also stubborn and hardheaded and when I want something, I go after it.

Q: The transparency and rawness of your (range of) emotions, while trying to achieve motherhood, will strike a chord with so many midlife mothers who themselves have hidden and unspoken experiences of defeat. What compelled you to write this book? Why were you so willing to expose yourself in this manner?

A: I wrote the book, thanks to my husband, who hounded me for years to tell my stories and would remind me I was a writer. I’d been so overwhelmed with two toddlers that cobwebs had shrouded my computer. When I finally […]

A Community of Mid-Life Mother Bloggers (In Celebration of Mother’s Day)

by Cyma Shapiro

Nine years ago, while sitting in the Moscow Marriott at age 46 with my newly adopted year-old daughter, I realized that I was going to be old when she graduated from college. The “old” was nearly my grandmother’s age – old! This was the very first time I’d ever felt my mortality and had ever even stopped to consider my chronological age. I had long ignored the biological clock theory thinking that it was mere hyperbole.

Although it came as a shock to me that I had not previously become pregnant, on that cold winter’s night nearly 9,000 miles from home, I finally felt my life begin. My age was a nagging problem, but at that moment I was filled with pride, joy and the fullness of starting a new family. I could see nothing but rosy times. Or so I thought. Little did I know that I had just joined a new club – moms over 40 – with no dues-paying members and no glue to bind them. Little did I know that in reality, I was one of them. (Two years later, we adopted our son).

Since then, I’ve made it my mission to expose the world to the group I call “Midlife Mothers” – that is, women choosing motherhood over 40. I have been featured on NPR and written for numerous online sites including Psychology Today and the Huffington Post. MLM entities MotheringintheMiddle.com and NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers (the only art gallery show dedicated to presenting women choosing motherhood over 40; now traveling North America) are intended to present a voice, face and forum.

Together with other midlife mother/women bloggers, we are helping redefine women in mid-life, dispel myths about who we are […]

Sticks and Stones

by Ellie Stoneley

Dear Reader: Our very own UK-based Ellie Stoneley has been shortlisted for the prestigious Brilliance in Blogging award for her blog, Mush Brained Ramblings.

Here is her latest work:

“Sticks and stones may break my bones But names will never hurt me”

This pearl of wisdom, attributed to a Mrs George Cuppples in something called Tappy’s Chicks back in 1872, is now part of nursery folklore.

I’ve never been particularly bothered by names or labels, which is probably just as well. I always wanted to be known as Beth (inspired by sweet gentle Beth from Little Women), but that never stuck, instead I ended up with Ellie as a result of my brother singing his version of (N)ellie the elephant very gleefully when my mother plated my hair into tight braids behind my ears which then stuck out at right angles.

I married in my mid forties (maybe the ears had put people off before that) and a few months before the wedding, was referred to by someone as a ‘spinster’ that’s one of the few names I have objected to … not long after that I became a “Mrs.,” a label that seems somehow too grown up for me and I’ve never quite got the hang of. Then, by an utter miracle, just over four years later, I became a mother. […]

Motherhood, with Gratitude

by Andrea Lynn

Kristi and children by photographer Tracy Cianflone

I finally saw the NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers* photo exhibit. I’ve seen many of the photos on the website, of course, and knew about the project before I started blogging here. I consider the creator of this whole Midlife Mothering project an old friend, though I suppose it has only been a few years. But, seeing the photos in real life, and reading the stories of the mothers and their children in black and white, was different.

We read so much online now, it seems rare to be standing before a real photo, much larger than my computer screen, and reading the stories in person, as others shuffled around me, sharing the exhibit space in downtown Toronto. […]

Facts and Myths About Infertility (from RESOLVE – the National Infertility Association)

Myth: Infertility is a women’s problem.

Fact: This is untrue. It surprises most people to learn that infertility is a female problem in 35% of the cases, a male problem in 35% of the cases, a combined problem of the couple in 20% of cases, and unexplained in 10% of cases. It is essential that both the man and the woman be evaluated during an infertility work-up.

Myth: Everyone seems to get pregnant at the drop of a hat.

Fact: More than five million people of childbearing age in the United States experience infertility. When you seek support, you will find that you are not alone. Join RESOLVE, a support group, or talk with others who are struggling to build a family, so that you won’t feel isolated. […]

Is Infertility Awareness Week for Me, Too? (Infertility Awareness Week – 4/21 – 4/27/2013)

by Jenilyn Gilbert LCSW

The 28 year old woman who is told ‘adoption is your only option’; the mother who wants to add another child to her family but feels guilty that others don’t have their first child yet; the 42-year-old woman who questions whether the diagnosis of infertility even applies to her, are all women who belong to this club of wanting to be mothers, but within this reluctant membership, there are subcultures, divided by age and diagnosis. In an already isolating experience, is it healthy to divide ourselves further? […]