"My dad thinks we are stark, raving mad," my husband confided in me. "He thinks we should be thinking about retiring now, not having new children."
Fortunately, we did not take a vote before we decided to embark on our journey of having a child together at our "advanced" ages. The only vote that counted was the doctors. They said I was in good health and there was no reason why we couldn't/shouldn't try.
Having children at the ripe old age of fifty has risks - both physical and emotional. There are some people who simply disapprove. We've already had our shot at making families, albeit not with each other (since this is both of our second marriages).
To be honest, I didn't think it could actually happen - which is not to say I didn't want it to happen. I really did. We each have three children. But during my first marriage, I was a partnerless parent. I remember once sitting on a plane with one of my children. A father in a nearby seat was jiggling his infant daughter on his lap and playing with her all the way from California to New York. Tears ran down my cheeks. And then I looked at the matching tears on my child's face. Neither of us had ever experienced the kind of love we were watching. We both wished for that more than anything. But it wasn't to be - not with that husband/father.
So when I first met my husband online and he sadly confided in me that he was really looking for someone younger because it was his greatest dream to have more children, I told him that I was willing to do whatever it took in order to make that dream come true. We got married about a year later. He decided to take me up on my offer.
I guess neither of us considered that it might cause an earthquake in the worlds we have already created. Not only do we have parents to answer to, but we've got children. Children who feel unnerved by the prospect of having half-siblings young enough to be their own children.
No one ever asks a three-year-old if he or she would like a younger sibling, and it never occurred to us that our older children, ages 15 - 23, might have expected us to ask for their approval before we decided to add to our family. Nor, did we expect to have to defend our decision with our parents. We did what most parents and children do. We simply went ahead with our plans, hoping everyone would be on board. We are six months away from our due date and still hoping that that will be the case. We are optimistic and look forward to having one big "happy" family - three of his, three of mine and, to complete the circle, ours.