Bloomin’ Mom: A Later Mom Shares – By Jackie Womack, Lansing, Michigan Chapter Head

I always thought I wanted to be a mom. In my early twenties, as many of my friends were taking on motherhood, I often thought to myself “maybe not”. I found the responsibility of children to be overwhelming and considered it a loss of my independence that I held near and dear. If I did choose to have children, I wanted to have a career and marriage as well.

My boyfriend and I dated for many, many years with no children. He often expressed a desire to have children (he had one from a previous relationship), but I was on the fence and often questioned myself as to why. We had no immediate plans for marriage, and for me, that was a “make-or-break” prior to having children. Not having a father in the home when I was growing up made it important to me that my children would be given a shot at a “normal” family life.

We finally decided to get married in 2007. After that I wanted to buy a house before children – so got a house. Then my husband gave me a, “are you ready now?” look. That’s when I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t want children, but I had fears. I’m sure they were fears that many face when deciding to have children. Will I be a good mom? Will I be able to provide for my children? Growing up in a single-parent, low-income household, I wanted to provide my children with the things I didn’t have. I never felt pressured to have children, but I knew I didn’t want to wait too many more years. After two years of marriage and with those fears pushed aside, I decided it was time to leap or step back from the ledge – so I took the leap.

I become pregnant in October of 2009 at the age of 36. The pregnancy was completely uneventful until I reached my 37th week and found out the baby was breech. Devastated, I called my husband crying on the phone at the thought of having a c-section. Although I knew that having a healthy baby was the most important thing, a c-section was my worst fear. Nonetheless, at the age of 37 in July of 2010, my beautiful baby boy was born – via scheduled c-section – healthy and strong. He is now 2 ½ -years-old and is the absolute joy of my life.

I am the last of my immediate friends to have children. While some of them have kids who moved out of the house and are in college, I am still in diaper-changing mode. I now know that this is the way my life was meant to be.

Although I find being a mother of “advanced maternal age” enjoyable, it comes with its set of challenges socially. It is hard to find other parents my age with children the age of my son to socialize with and share stories of motherhood we can all relate to. Of course, I can talk to my friends about my son, but all they have to say is “yeah, I remember that” or “whew, glad that’s over for me”. So I began my search on the Internet to find social groups in my area.

Unfortunately, the ones I did find were mostly stay-at-home-moms who got together during a time I was not available and were at least 10 years plus younger than me. Then I discovered Motherhood Later…Than Sooner on the web, and knew it is what I’ve been looking for – but there were no chapters in my area. Then I thought “I could just start one. Nah, I don’t have time”. But I was really interested in meeting other moms, dads, and families the same age as my family so I figured, why not? So here I am! I hope you’ll join me!

BIO

Jackie Womack is a 40-year-old wife, mother and career woman. She lives in Lansing, Michigan where she was born and raised. She has worked in the information technology field for the 11 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in Technical Management and is currently working towards career development in project management. Her 2 ½-yea- old son, Xavier, is her heart’s joy. She and her husband of six years are now planning for baby #2.