40 And Pregnant

A couple of months ago my wife Alison suddenly annouced that she would like to have another baby.

After I got back up of the floor, I replied" Are you out of your mind?", (toned down to comply with the adult content rule of Hubpages).

But after a lot of consideration and several discussions I have come around to the idea and I would be proud to welcome a new member into our family.

Having been already blessed with three wonderful children we have decided to try for a fourth.

I won't state my wife's age but she is only one year short of when life is said to begin and that is the main cause of my concern. Childbirth can take its toll on even the youngest and fittest of women but many complications can arise in slightly older women, (watching my words carefully for fear of a slap in the mouth).

Many more older women are choosing to have children these days than 20 years ago because they want to concentrate more on their education, careers, travelling the world and having fun before settling down tostart a family.

Age though is an important matter to consider when considering having a child because the older that you are the more chance there will be of complications during pregnancy and child birth.

Miscarriage is more common in older women, there is more possibility of the mother to be contracting Gestational Diabetes. High Blood pressure in the mother is another concern, there is an increased possibility of Breach birth, older women are more prone to have a prolonged labor, and the push reflex when the baby is coming out can be weaker in older women.

There are also risks to the unborn baby of older mothers, The incidence of congenital diseases such as Down’s Syndrome,Trisomy 18 and Spina bifida increase in babies born to older mothers statistics show that 1 out of 100 babies born to mothers aged 40 have downs syndrome.

There is a test that can be taken during pregnancy that can tell you if your unborn child has Downs Syndrome,Trisomy 18 or Spina bifida but it has a slight possibility of causing a miscarriage, an Amnio centesis, A needle is usually inserted through the mother's abdominal wall or at the end of the vagina, and through the wall of the uterus into the amniotic sac. miscarriages are rare but possible because sometimes the needle puncture will not heal and the amniotic fluid leaks out.

The friends and family that we have informed of our decision to try for another child think that we are both completely bonkers and they have even tried to talk us out of it.

We have weighed up the pro's and cons and our decision still stands, all that stands in our way at the moment is that my wife has a contraception implant in her arm and it will have to be removed before we can go any further.

The appointment has been made to remove the implant and we will wait and see what happens after that.

If we are successful and my wife does become pregnant we will be over the moon, but if we try and she doesn't become pregnant we will have at least tried, I know that if we didn't at least try we would both regret it for a long time.

wish us luck

My wife gave birth to baby Jason, all went well during her pregnancy although Jason came into the world a month earlier than expected. Both my wife and I are glad that we decided to have another baby and are delighted with the outcome.