Memorial Day remembrances

I've often said here that one of the biggest problems with being an older parents is that your kids have grandparents that are much older. That goes double when you're a second-generation older-parent kid - I never met either of my grandfathers, and my kids will never meet my father, not on this Earth anyway.

There are some exceptions to that idea however. One of them came in to play over the Memorial Day weekend. I asked my son to ask my mother what it was like for her during World War II, when she was a newlywed and young mother. What a gift it was for him to hear first-hand stories about such things as waiting to hear from her brother, a pilot who flew missions in Germany but who also had a natural tendency toward reticence. (In fact, my uncle took part in bombing missions of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, but he was reluctant to talk about it.) It was a chance for him to learn how the war affected people on a family level, even those who didn't fight it.

We also went to a Memorial Day celebration in our town of Lewisville, where a WWII vet raised the flag on a new monument honoring POWs and MIAs.

photo: Sean (in yellow shirt) salutes during the playing of taps during the Lewisville Memorial Day ceremony.

More older parents in the news

This time, we've got an Associated Press story on a 60-year-old New Jersey woman who delivered twins, apparently the oldest woman in America to do so. She and her husband have been married 38 years. Hard to imagine still changing diapers during your 40th wedding anniversary. Des and I haven't even reached our 10th yet.

The mother of the twins is reported to have said that she didn't want her 6-year-old to be an only child. It's a poorly held family secret that my brother, Scott - a year older than me - was an accident for my parents, who were by then hitting 40 and already had three older kids. I was planned for the same reason that this mother said - so that Scott would not be an only child. As it turned out, we were not very close as children, although I idolized him, listened to all the music he listened to and wanted to do everything he did. Some of those things carried over to adulthood - he was the first to tell me about ACC basketball, which I have followed rabidly ever since. (although I switched from being a Tar Heel fan to Wake Forest when I went to college.) We got much closer as we got older - he even officially married my wife and me, while he was a magistrate. Now I can see what our parents had in mind - he's a great friend to have around and understands better where I came from than anyone else.

Father Figures

The folks from the U.S. Census Bureau have released some interesting statistics in advance of Father's Day. Here are some of those stats with links to more info:

How Many Fathers?
26.5 million - the number of fathers who are part of married-couple families with children younger than 18 in 2006.
Among these —
● 22 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18 (among
married-couple family households only).
● 2 percent live in someone else’s home.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/009842.html>

Single dads
2.5 million - The number of single fathers in 2006, up from 400,000 in 1970. Currently, among single parents living with their children, 19 percent are men.
Among these fathers —
● 8 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18.
● About 40 percent each are divorced or never married, 16 percent are
separated
and 4 percent are widowed. (There is no significant difference
between the percentages of single fathers who are divorced and never
married.)
● 14 percent live in someone else’s home.
● 27 percent have an annual family income of $50,000 or more.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/009842.html>


Kind Words from Dad
63% - Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents who were praised three or more times a day by their fathers. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 57 percent.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/children/009412.html>


Mr. Mom
159,000 - Estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2006. These married fathers with children younger than 15 have remained out of the labor force for more than one year primarily so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home. These fathers cared for 283,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads:
• 60 percent had two or more children.
• 40 percent had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.
• 35 percent had children younger than 3 living with them.
<http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/009842.html>

A trend that would work for men, too?

On our Web site, Journalnow.com, we're running a story about women who are postponing children freezing their eggs in the hopes of diminishing the risks of advanced maternal age. It's a well-researched story that considers some of the bio-ethics involved in the decision to freeze eggs.

I found it interesting that no mention was made of men and their own particular risks. I assume once most of these women are ready to have babies, they will likely be with partners of similar ages. Perhaps we should look to see if a similar trend would work for men.

Here's the opening paragraph:

WASHINGTON - As the number of women delaying motherhood continues to rise, many fertility clinics are starting to offer a new service that allows them to freeze some of their eggs to buy more time on their biological clocks.

then there's the downside:

"Currently available evidence does not validate the assumption that if you freeze your eggs now, your chances of a successful pregnancy will be better than your chances using your own fresh eggs at that point," said Marc Fritz, a University of North Carolina reproductive endocrinologist. He spoke on behalf of ASRM, which recommends limiting egg-freezing to cancer patients and research studies.

Fritz and others experts worry that egg-freezing might lull women into assuming it will make it easy to have children in their 40s. A woman's chances of conceiving are still much better in her 20s and 30s.

I'll try to free up some time next week to see what I can find about options for men. If you have suggestions, feel free to post.

It's not OUR day, but...

Mother's Day is almost here. It's been said that the best thing a father can do for their children is to love their mother, so here's your chance to show it. There's a nice essay on the topic at Fathers.com, the Web site of the National Center for Fathering, which you can read here.

I can add that Mother's Day becomes more precious to me each year that my mother gets older. And if you've got ideas for Mother's Day, feel free to pass them along. Non-store-bought ideas are particularly appreciated.


--> On an unrelated note, joining the club this week is Oscar-winner Kevin Costner, 52, with the birth of a son, Cayden. Cayden is Costner's fifth child and the first with wife of three years, Christine Baumgartner, 33.

What do Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have in common?

British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced today that he will step down next month. Speculation is high that his successor will be Gordon Brown, currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Reportedly, the men have their political differences, but they do have one thing in common - they're both older dads. Check it out:

Blair (b.1953) had a son, Leo, in 2000, the first time in many-a-year that a British prime minister had a child while in office.

Brown (b.1951) married for the first time in 2000. He and his wife, Sarah, had their first child, a daughter, the next year. She was born prematurely and died a short time later. They had a healthy son, John, in 2003, and another son, Fraser, last year. Fraser has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.

Surely there's a better catch-phrase than SODs.

Our paper ran the New York Times story that I noted last month about much-older dads. If you missed it, you can read it here. Most of the story focuses on dads 60 and older - but many of them face the same issues fathers years younger do. I should point out, as I noted back in September, that the oldest group is not growing as most of the categories of older dads are. According to the CDC, in the last 20+ years the paternal birth rate increased for almost all age categories 30 and over. The only category where there wasn't an increase was men 55 and older, which stated the same: 0.3 births per 1,000 men.

Now, can we put our heads together and come up with a better phrase than SODs? It's short for start-over dads, but it makes me think of grass plugs. I usually refer to "Fathers after 40" as older dads. But even someone who has kids in his 20s will be an older dad someday - he may not be having new kids, but he's still a dad. There's got to be a better way of putting it.

Graphic: Lovin' the illustration by Journal artist Nick Weir.

Chapter IV - Our First Year

My father was born in 1918, my mother in 1921. They married during World War II before my father went off for training. They had my three oldest siblings between 1943 and 1948, then my brother and me in 1962 and '63, when both my parents were in their 40s.

I spent most of my 20s trying to figure out a career and most of my 30s trying to establish myself in one. I didn't marry until I was 34, and had my first child three years later. By that time, my father had died (in 1972) and my mother was almost 80.

I introduced my mother to her granddaughter, Delaney Sage, through the protective glass door of the NICU. By this time, my mother had been a great-grandmother for more than 10 years. But here she was, looking down into the eyes of what had become a legacy of late-life births. Young and old, separated by a span of 85 years.

Our first year with our daughter has been a blessing. She's grown into a sweet, curious giggly little girl who is a joy to be with. Because she was a premie, and because we're older, and because we're just naturally a little paranoid, we've been watching her development very closely, and she's hitting all her milestones about as we expected her to. My mother says that having grandchildren around has given a spark to these last few years. I wish my father could have seen them, but that's one of the downsides of having kids late.

That's the story of how I became an older dad. Feel free to share your story.

Photo: MommyG gives Delaney Sage a kiss at her 1-year birthday party.

Chapter III - My Daughter

My wife had a C-section on the morning of April 18.
Even that did not go out without a hitch.
Delaney had a defect in the way her umbilical cord connected to her placenta, known as Velamentous insertion. It is a relatively rare but potentially lethal defect in which the blood vessels could have ruptured and our baby could have bled to death. Fortunately our doctor noticed it right away, and our baby was born without any further complications. Although she was a month early, we expected her to weigh more than five pounds. Instead, she weighed only about 4 and a half. We were able to see her in the delivery room only briefly before she was whisked away to the NICU.

She seemed okay, but of course we worried. We sat in a recovery room while they worked on her one floor below us - I can remember sitting there watching Erik Estrada pitching real estate in Arkansas on TV, waiting anxiously for them to tell me I could visit our baby. When the moment finally came, I rushed to the NICU and knocked on the window. When the nurse looked up, I showed her my maternity ward security bracelet and said "My daughter's in there." We knew for months that we were having a baby girl, but we had always referred to her as "the baby" or the "little sister" or by one of the names we were thinking of calling her. This was the first time I had ever referred to her as my daughter, and it made me feel like a dad again. Not just an expectant father, but a dad.

She looked small and was having trouble breathing, but was otherwise healthy. Flanked by preemies much smaller than she was, she didn't even look that tiny. We weren't out of the woods, but finally there was some reason for optimism.

For Desiree, the ultimate moment came when our children touched for the first time.

"I came out of the operating room with a big belly and no baby," she says. "We tried to explain to Sean what had happened, but it was hard for him to understand. He kept asking 'When is my sister going to be born?' After four days Delaney was taken off of oxygen and we could take her to the NICU window so that Sean could see her. He could not touch her, but at least he knew he did have a baby sister.

After two weeks Delaney was released to go home. As the NICU door closed behind me, I went to my knees and gently placed the car seat that was holding our tiny baby on the floor. Sean was by his sister's side, introducing himself as 'big brother' and stroking her cheeks as gently as a fluttering butterfly. And yes, it was worth it many times over. Our family was complete."

Tomorrow: Our First Year

Photo: Delaney was shrouded in blue light during the first few days of her stay in the NICU.

Chapter II - Joy interrupted

It didn't take long for our joy of having our prayers answered turn to concern about the pregnancy and the health of our little child, including a miscarriage scare early on that sent us, in tears, to the emergency room.

It turned out that scare wouldn't be our last. On Dec. 14, 2005, we got the word that one of the screening tests had come back abnormal. This news would scare any potential parent, but as older parents we were even more worried, knowing the risks of Down Syndrome and other associated risks. My wife tried to reassure me. She said even tests that come back abnormal often turn out to be nothing. We went to have an ultrasound performed immediately upon hearing the news, and an amniocentesis was scheduled. It was a lonely, long time sitting in the room waiting for the ultrasound to begin, but we were still hoping that the odds were in our favor, and that perhaps the risks that our child had a major genetic problem was still no greater than 1 in 45, based on our ages. To a trained eye, the ultrasound reveals a lot about a growing baby. To me, it looked like a really bad shadow-puppet show on a TV with poor reception. Our doctor told us the ultrasound was normal, as we had hoped, but it turned out to be little comfort. My wife asked what were the risks of a chromosomal anomaly based on the abnormal screening results we had just received. The answer stunned us - the odds that our baby had a major genetic anomaly were better than 1 in 5 based on the screening, and we wouldn't know the answer until we got the results from a FISH (fluorescent in-situ hybridization) analysis, which would be hours away. I went back to work and held it all in - I was too scared to mention anything to anyone (in fact, it would be days later before I would tell any of my friends about it.) At home, we tried to have as normal a night as we could with our son Sean, knowing we would soon get a call that would in many ways shape the next several years of our lives.

The call came in around 8 p.m. The FISH results were normal. The joy returned.

Even that wouldn't be the last struggle of the pregnancy. My wife was sick throughout the entire eight months. The doctor sent her to the hospital once to have her examined for pre-eclampsia because her blood pressure was soaring. If she went from pre-eclampsia to full-blown eclampsia, both her life and the baby's could be at risk. We didn't know if she would have to stay overnight. She checked out fine and was sent home. Two weeks later, her doctor examined her again, and again decided to send her to the hospital for pre-eclampsia. Des asked when she would be able to go home. The answer: she would be in the hospital until the baby was born. Our baby wasn't due to be delivered until late May. But my wife's protein levels, which should have been in the low hundreds, were now soaring into the thousands, and her condition was becoming more dangerous with every increase. Our doctored scheduled to deliver her on April 18th. We still didn't know if the many complications throughout the pregnancy would have any effect on our baby, but after all we had been through, we just wanted to be able to look at her face and see a healthy child.

Tomorrow: Chapter III - My Daughter

Chapter 1 - The decision to have another child

If everything had gone as planned, I wouldn't even be a "Father after 40." My wife Desiree and I started talking about having another child not long after my son Sean was born in 2000. We probably had an intellectual understanding how difficult that could turn out to be, but we weren't emotionally prepared. By this time we were both in our late 30s, and our collective biological clock was winding down. Des works in genetics, so we were all too aware of some of the increased risks that advanced parental age brings.

But the desire to have another child was so strong in both of us that we decided to keep trying despite a string of pregnancy tests lining our trashcan showing only one blue line.

"Sean was my motivation," Desiree says. "I am an only child, and I never wanted Sean to be an only child." Sean had also asked for a sibling. My wife likes to tell the story of him watching Dragon Tales and turning to her and saying "Mom, Cassie has 72 brothers and sisters. Why can't I have just one?"

It seems like a simple question, but it led to hours of heartbreak. We wanted it to happen, so did Sean, but it just wasn't happening. Time seemed to have caught up with us. By the spring of 2005, we were near the end of trying. It had already taken an unspoken toll on me and my wife, physically and emotionally. Could we try again? We took a new tack. We had spent a lot of time talking about the clinical aspects of trying to get pregnant - the best times, the cycles, all the things we could do to maximize the possibility. This time I set all that aside in my mind and just pray for it. Pray often and pray hard. It's easy to get distracted by all the fertility numbers - when having a baby becomes a problem to solve, instead of what a baby truly is, a miracle to be celebrated. Forget for a moment all the numbers and the expert advice - God knew what was in our hearts and could make it happen if He wanted.

The next pregnancy test was positive.

"We waited until my first ultrasound to tell Sean about the pregnancy," Desiree says. "When he came into that dimly lit room, I pointed to the blinking dot on the monitor and said 'That's your baby brother or sister's heart beating.' Yes, I had a baby in my tummy. The expression on his face lit up that dark room!"

Tomorrow - Joy interrupted.