Women who couldn’t resist the hunger for one final baby
... they begged, bribed and bullied their oh-so reluctant husbands. So how did it all work out?
MISTAKEN for grandmothers. Suspected of having children by different fathers. Or just a late life mistake.
These are just some of the misconceptions faced by 40- something women whose overwhelming desire to have a final child — many years after their last infant — has resulted in them having one ‘last hurrah’ baby.
While most mothers enter their fifth decade relieved that their childrearing days are behind them, it is not a view shared by all women.
Indeed, an increasing number are experiencing a hunger to have one last baby before the menopause closes the nursery door for ever.
‘I get fed up with people assuming my two eldest are from a different relationship,’ says Clare Barrington-Chappell, 46, who had her ‘last hurrah’ baby at the age of 40. ‘They can’t fathom the desire to have one last child. My youngest is forever being labelled a mistake — but most definitely wasn’t.’
Clare, who already had two teenage daughters with husband Damion, 44, was convinced that her family would only be complete when she had three children.
It was not, however, an urge initially shared by her husband. ‘It took a long time to persuade Damion that we wanted a third baby,’ Clare says.
‘I even resorted to telling him that I “felt” like there was a little boy in the next room waiting to come in.
‘I’m a spiritual person and genuinely believed that there was a presence I could feel. That’s why Damion eventually relented.’
As it turned out, when Clare, who runs a model agency, had her third child, it was another daughter, Connie, now five.
‘I always wanted a third. I’m that mother that had always seen herself with three children. I’d open the door for the two girls and wait for the third child to come in.
‘Every time it would surprise me that no one else was there. I’d close the door and feel silly, but incredibly sad.’ Clare and Damion, a human resources director, and their other daughters, Amber, 17, and Darcy, 15, live in Bristol. While Clare knew she wanted one last baby, Damion had doubts about raising another child into his late 40s and 50s.
Desperate, Clare promised to undertake all responsibility for the newborn baby in the early fraught months.
‘One of the deals we made was that I would do all the night feeds and pay for the childcare when I went back to work,’ says Clare, who also agreed to Damion getting a motorbike as part of the pay-off.
‘We were on holiday when he finally agreed — and I fell pregnant in a week. I know it takes a long time for some women, but not me. I look after myself and eat really healthily. By the time we returned home I was expecting.’
While Clare was delighted, not everyone in her family accepted the news as easily. She describes her elder daughters as ‘ shocked, surprised, but eventually happy about it’ when she broke the news.
A further shock was in store for Damion at the 20-week scan.
‘When we were told we were having a girl, Damion didn’t talk to me for a couple of days,’ she says. ‘ He’s a rugby man, so had started to envisage that finally fatherhood might involve standing at the side of a rugby pitch instead of watching weepy films with his daughters.’
Clare says that when Connie arrived, there was no jealousy from her older daughters, but it did take a ‘bit of time’ for Damion to bond with her. Now though, according to Clare, they are never apart.
Indeed, it wasn’t just Clare’s husband who was against the pregnancy. At first, her friends expressed surprise, too. ‘Initially they weren’t supportive. I got used to hearing: “What the hell did you think you were doing?” time and again.’
Yet psychotherapist Jennie Miller says the yearning for one more baby is more common than we realise.
‘Some women fear empty-nest syndrome dreadfully,’ she says. ‘Women like the routine of children. Studies have shown that time appears to pass more quickly in such domestic set-ups.
‘The fear of time stretching out in front of you is very real.
‘Some women genuinely wonder what on earth they’ll do when the children have left and there’s just the two of them at home.
‘While, on the other hand, her husband will be genuinely looking forward to getting his wife back and planning for their future.’
BuT
Miller also warns that ‘last hurrah’ babies can have an adverse impact on siblings. ‘For the youngest child it can be hard,’ says Miller. ‘up until then they have been the centre of attention. Another danger is that the parents can over-rely on the eldest to babysit and parent their younger sibling.
‘It’s really important to encourage a sibling relationship, even if it’s just playing a game such as football.’
That chimes with Nicola Simonds, 45, who has two sons, Niall, 18, and Tyler, four, with husband Steven, 49, an environmental officer.
‘While my sons get on well, their relationship isn’t an equal sibling one,’ says Nicola, a beauty therapist who lives in Prestatyn, Wales. ‘It’s more of an uncle-nephew relationship. For Tyler, Niall is another adult in the house.’
Nicola, who had her last baby when she was 40, also suffered some unwelcome comments. ‘When I was eight months’ pregnant a total stranger approached me in a store while I was poring over some baby books and said: “You’re taking a risk at your age, aren’t you?”
I was stunned that he dared talk to me like that. It was so upsetting. I got home and burst into tears. Even today, almost five years on, those words have never left me.’
Nicola left a long gap between her sons due to a difficult first pregnancy at the age of 26. ‘I hated every second of it,’ she says.
‘ I suffered dreadful morning sickness, then I had pre-eclampsia. I had to have an emergency Caesarean section. I was terrified to go through it all again.’
The family grew accustomed to a one-child lifestyle — but Nicola still dreamed of having a second baby.
Three months before her 40th birthday, she broached the subject with her husband.
‘I realised that it was now or never,’ she says. ‘I’d joke we’d have to do it before my eggs dried up. I genuinely didn’t think it would work.
‘It had taken me two years to fall pregnant with Niall, yet six months after we began trying, I fell pregnant with Tyler.
‘The pregnancy this time was joyous. It was textbook perfect. I do wonder if we perhaps shouldn’t have left it so long. But then I took an incredibly zealous Mother Earth approach the second time around.
‘I practised yoga, I ate healthily, I did everything by the book.’
Yet her age was the one aspect Nicola could do nothing about.
‘When you’re over 40 you’re classed as a geriatric mother. When I first read those words I felt awful. It pulls you up sharp.
‘People are very quick to judge. I lost a number of friends over it. They were so tactless, saying things like: “Are you mad? What about the age gap between the children?”
‘At first I’d laugh it off. But when I was on my own I did get upset about it, especially when it happened again and again. I had to cut certain friends off. My husband was very supportive, though.’
The whole family worked to accommodate their new addition. Nicola overhauled the family’s comfortable lifestyle and ‘made sacrifices’. Her beloved Mini was switched for a family car. Holidays became a thing of the past and Nicola also decided to stop working full time.
‘I know how fast time flies. I wanted to be there for my child,’ she says.
‘There was no question of me working and never seeing him because he was stuck in childcare.
‘I do clash with friends over what they call my “old- fashioned” attitudes. I refuse to use a babysitter
or childminders. My clients’ appointments are organised around my son.’
Shazia Malik, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at The Portland Hospital, London, understands why so many women succumb to this craving for one more baby. She believes some are compelled by a desire to ‘prove their fertility and, by proxy, their youthfulness’ when the menopause looms.
Yet she cautions that, without the luxury of help, it is a much tougher path for 40- something women. ‘Being an older mother can be incredibly isolating and tough,’ she says.
Avril Cassell, 44, a life coach, married to Lenroy, 43, a civil engineer, recognises this.
They have four children, daughters Tia, 18, and Asia, 15, and sons Tye, 10, and Kyle, four.
‘I’m sure there aren’t many mums like me who have a daughter applying for university and then a four-year-old son starting at reception,’ says Avril, who lives in Isleworth, West London. ‘My fourth pregnancy was hard. I can see now that even though I’d given birth to three children in my 20s and 30s, by the time I reached 40, my body wasn’t prepared.’
Avril describes her schedule as a ‘nightmare’. ‘It is intense having to take four children from one thing to another,’ she says.
‘After- school clubs clash, parents’ evenings are always on the same night, and as for birthday parties, they can be a nightmare when they fall on the same weekend.
‘One of my daughters is revising for her A-levels and she thinks the stage she is at is more important than other things going on for the children in our household. I’ve had to explain to her that it isn’t.’
And
it isn’t just within the home that Avril struggles. At the school gate, childrearing trends have meant that she and the other mothers are often poles apart.
‘don’t get me wrong, they’re lovely and want the best for their children, but we’re not on the same wavelength,’ says Avril.
‘new mums are risk adverse, they freak out over sugar being in cake.
‘This is how cake has always been made and no harm will come to their children if they eat it. Children need to be exposed to everything, in moderation.
‘Some mothers just don’t live in the real world. That’s why when I get asked for advice, I’m reluctant to give it, as my methods are deemed old-fashioned.’
While Avril claims her ‘ core’ group of girlfriends is from when her eldest daughter was born, she admits they see less of each other because of Avril’s obligations to her younger children. It’s meant she has had to make other mummy friends.
‘My best friend amongst the mums is seven years younger than me — she keeps me on my toes. She laughs when I’m hounded for advice on getting your child into the best school in the area.
‘ The younger generation of yummy mummies don’t understand that if they have aspirations for their children then they have to get actively involved, day-in, day-out as well.’
Yet despite the challenges her ‘last hurrah’ baby has brought, Avril would not be without him.
‘It struck me the other day that I would never be pregnant or breast-feed again. It’s a sobering thought. There are those moments when I look at him and don’t want him to grow up.’