Mothering in the Middle

Selected Quotes by Adrienne Rich (1929 – 2012)

Life on the planet is born of woman.

Today’s women
Born yesterday
Dealing with tomorrow
Not yet where we’re going
But not still where we were.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.

When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.

I keep coming back to you in my head, but you couldn’t know that, and I have no carbons.

Midlife Media Interest Hits Portly Zoologist (43)

by David Bainbridge

Everyone seems to have an opinion about middle age.

I’d hoped many people would feel like that – not least when I was bashing out the 80,000 hard-won words of ‘Middle Age: A Natural History‘ – yet I didn’t realise until the book came out how almost everyone seems to want to express their opinion about the topic. […]

On Failure, Forgiveness and Cutting Ourselves Some Slack

by Peg O'Neill, M.D.

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. Over the past six years, we have commemorated “Gotcha Day” with story-telling about how we prayed for him to become part of our family, how we came to know him, and the details of how he joined our family, including how good he was on the plane coming back from Guatemala. We look at pictures, ooh and aah over how cute and funny he was. We go out to dinner at his favorite restaurant, a mediocre pasta joint near our house. […]

Mindful Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Sorrow

Every mother has her share. It may be a string of small sorrows, small hurts that one after another peck at a mother’s heart. It might be one great sorrow that swoops down and takes you in its talons, rising up and enveloping you even as you think you have it tamed. Sorrow goes hand-in-hand with joy, often in equal measure. The mother who feels the rapture of unspeakable joy may also encounter unbearable sorrow. Invite sorrow in with a warm welcome. Give her a place to sit by the fire; she may need to linger a lifetime. Speak with her, cry with her, grieve with her – yet do not push her away. Sorrow is a teacher. At times stern and unrelenting, she will dole out her lessons as you are able to receive them. She will work with you tirelessly. Slowly, as sure as the sun rises, you will make your way to the enduring light at the center of sorrow.

www.rachelsnyder.wordpress.com

Baba

Andrea Lynn

This weekend, my family is throwing a surprise birthday party for my grandmother. A surprise 90^th birthday party. Setting aside the question of whether one should surprise a 90 year old with anything, least of all a room full of people yelling “surprise”, the party has got me thinking. A lot. The first question is whether I should drive 250 miles, each way, with my small children in the backseat, and then drive back the next day, so that we can attend the party. It’s a long way to drive, at an inopportune time of the year, and we’ve all been sick for the last few weeks. We’ve been feeling better, but the very idea of a trip right now – and that long winding drive — exhausts me. But 90^th birthday parties don’t come around that often, and everyone else will be there – Baba’s children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, dozens in all. […]

Premature Ovarian Aging (Tips for Women Trying to Get Pregnant Over 40)

The Center for Human Reproduction (CHR), a leading New York fertility center specializing in pregnancy in older women, has issued a fertility tip sheet for women trying to get pregnant after age 40. With a growing number of women interested in pregnancy over 40, timely evaluation and diagnosis of infertility are becoming ever more important. Premature ovarian aging (POA), a clinical term coined by CHR researchers, is one of the major causes of female infertility. As women get older, their ovarian reserve (OR, the ability of the ovaries to produce good-quality eggs) naturally declines. Approximately 10 percent of women, however, experience this decline of ovarian function much earlier than others. This means that if their OR is evaluated, it is found to be lower than what is expected for their age. As a result, women with POA have a hard time conceiving on their own or even with fertility treatments if the treatment is not appropriate for their ovarian status. With appropriate treatment, however, women with POA can conceive. Read more at: http://www.centerforhumanreprod.com/premature_ovaries.html

In Honor of World Poetry Day (3/21)

Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone – Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Let’s Give Older Mothers a Break

by Mariella Frostrup

(There’s no ‘right time’ to give birth, but later motherhood has advantages – its growth shouldn’t be greeted with wrist-slapping)

According to new statistics the female population of England and Wales are giving birth at rates not seen since the baby boom at the end of the second world war, and while the number of teenage pregnancies is declining, an increasing proportion of new babies are being born to older mothers. How should we greet such news? Pop the champagne corks, roll the red carpet out in front of your nearest maternity ward … or bemoan the 20 wasted years when these women were “failing” to make babies? Read more on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/01/give-older-mothers-a-break

Mariella Frostrup, 50, is a Norwegian-born journalist and television presenter, well known on British TV and radio, mainly for arts programmes. She writes for The Guardian/uk. She is a new older mother of two children.

Older Mothers At Far Greater Risk Of Depression, Reveals Study

New mothers in their early forties are five times more likely to suffer from depression after giving birth than their younger counterparts, new research has revealed.

Researcher Giulia Muraca, a Phd student at the University of British Columbia, believes this could be due to higher stress levels among older mothers fuelled by anxieties about their pregnancy and birth. Read more on the Huffington Post UK:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/22/older-mothers-depression-risk_n_1293980.html?just_reloaded=1

Aging Gracefully In A Culture That Idolizes Youth

by Beverley Golden

My mother Lillian Golden is turning 96 this year. She is vivacious and vital; has an impeccable memory, is beautiful, gracious and an inspiration to everyone who meets her. An inspiration of what aging gracefully can look like, in a culture that is obsessed with and idolizes youth.

She still lives in her own condo and is an active and integral part of the social scene in her building. She is strong, tenacious and stubborn and has never been in the hospital overnight, other than to have her children. She was well into her thirties when she had my brother Niel and I, which in those days, was considered old. […]