How old is to old for baby??
- Thread starter magic kingdom park
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fakereadhed
The Tag Fairy has me on "ignore"!
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jodifla said:
Wow. Hook me up to a lie detector...I can't imagine not having kids at all. And I mean it. If someone chooses not to, I see their point of view. But for myself, I would be bored and feel very empty if I had none. I don't think most people lie about that.
Since I am of course completely honest, I will also say I like my kids a whole lot better than anyone elses kids.
And I only ignore them when they are throwing a fit.
fakereadhed said:Wow. Hook me up to a lie detector...I can't imagine not having kids at all. And I mean it. If someone chooses not to, I see their point of view. But for myself, I would be bored and feel very empty if I had none. I don't think most people lie about that.
Since I am of course completely honest, I will also say I like my kids a whole lot better than anyone elses kids.
And I only ignore them when they are throwing a fit.
I am with you on this one (and totally agree about the likeing your own kids better then other kids.)
jodifla
WDW lover since 1972
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fakereadhed said:Wow. Hook me up to a lie detector...I can't imagine not having kids at all. And I mean it. If someone chooses not to, I see their point of view. But for myself, I would be bored and feel very empty if I had none. I don't think most people lie about that.
Since I am of course completely honest, I will also say I like my kids a whole lot better than anyone elses kids.
And I only ignore them when they are throwing a fit.
Rereading my quote, "most" is not the right word. I don't believe most people didn't want their kids, but the Ann Landers column was sure surprising. Doesn't anyone remember that?
My point was more that people won't admit it publically if they DO think that they shouldn't have had kids.
jodifla
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Here is the famous column I was talking about:
If You Had It To Do Over AgainWould You Have Children?
By Ann Landers
It was a simple enough letter. A young couple about to be married wrote to ask for guidance. They were undecided. They just couldnt make up their minds whether or not to have a family.
So many of our friends, the letter said, seem to resent their children. They envy us our freedom to go and come as we please. Then theres the matter of money. They say their kids keep them broke. One couple we know had their second child in January. Last week, she had her tubes tied and he had a vasectomyjust to make sure. All this makes me wonder, Ann Landers. Is parenthood worth the trouble? Jim and I are very much in love. Our relationship is beautiful. We dont want anything to spoil it. All around us we see couples who were so much happier before they were tied down with a family. Will you please ask your readers the question: If you had it to do over again, would you have children?
I printed that letter and the sky fell in. The word didnt come from Chicken Little. It came straight from the gut of young parents and old parents, from Anchorage to San Antonio. I heard from Junior Leaguers and welfare mothers. The Boston Brahmins wrote and so did the hill people of Kentucky. I had struck an unprecedented number of raw nerves. The question unleashed an incredible torrent of confessionsthings I could never tell anyone else
After five days of reading, counting, and sorting mail, a bleary-eyed staff of eight secretaries announced we had received over 10,000 responses, andare you ready for this?70 percent of those who wrote said, No. If I had it to do over again, I would not have children.
Twenty years of writing the Ann Landers column has made me positively shockproof. Or so I thought. But I was wrong. The results of that poll left me stunned, disturbed, and just plain flummoxed.
Could it be? Not only could it be, it is. The message came through loud and clear. Wake up and smell the coffee, Annie old girl. Your readers had blown the American Dream. Motherhood, which always rated right up there with apple pie, Old Glory and the U.S. Marines was due for a reassessment.
About 40 percent of those who wrote to say, No. I would not have children if I had it to do over again, didnt sign their names. On the other hand, nearly all the letter that said, Yes. Our children have brought us great happiness, bore signatures. A number of those who expressed the latter view asked me to print their letters. Many said, You can use my name if you want to.
Approximately 80 percent of the total response came from women. The average letter ran almost a page longer than the usual Landers letter. I was particularly moved by the intensity of feeling.
Dozens who wrote said, I am weeping as I write this. Its the first time I have ever put such thoughts about my children down on paper. Its painful.
Many readers who expressed shame and guilt signed their names and addresses but asked me not to respond. A Miami woman P.S.d, My mother-in-law makes her home with us. Her eyesight for envelopes is very bad, but its perfect for whats inside. If she found out I had written to you, I would never hear the end of it. Please dont answer in any way, shape or form.
The No mail fell into four major categories.
Category One: Young parents who were deeply concerned about global hunger, overpopulation and the possibility that we might incinerate ourselves with nuclear weapons. A San Francisco father expressed his sentiments candidly: The world is in lousy shape. We would feel guilty if we brought a child into this mess. Later, if we decide we want a family, we will adopt.
Category Two: Parents who stated frankly that their children had ruined their marriage. Our happiest years were the ones before the babies came, wrote an Atlanta woman. In those days, we had time for the theater, parties, rides in the country, weekend trips and best of alleach other. A wife who had signed her letter Too Late For Tears in Tampa wrote, I was a successful, attractive, career woman before I had these kids. Now Im an exhausted, shrieking, nervous wrecktoo tired for sex, conversation or anything else. A Chicago mother of four enclosed her check-out tape from the supermarket. The total was $61. This is what we spent on groceries last Thursday, she wrote. The price of food is out of sight. My husband was laid off for six weeks last winter and we had to accept help from my folks. It was humiliating. We love our kids but they are so damned expensive. Actually they havent given us that much pleasure. Wed have to vote no.
Category Three contained the most pathetic letters of all. They came from older parents whose children had grown up and left home. Manhattan Mom wrote with more rancor than self-pity. I get a postcard from the Bahamas at Christmastime. On Mothers Day, I get an azalea plant. In between, maybe two phone calls. I raised that boy alone. His father died of cancer when he was three. Some thanks I get.
A 63-year-old president of a large corporation in Cleveland apologized for writing in longhand But, he went on, Im ashamed to dictate this letter to my secretary. He described the camping trips, the evening devoted to watching their sons play football. The sacrifices (not money, he emphasized) in terms of time spent with their children. And now, he wrote sadly, they are too busy for us, but they seem to have plenty of time for their in-laws. Thank God we dont need anything from them, but it hurts not to be included in their lives. My wife and I talk about it to each other but no one else knows how we feel. Its not the sort of thing you lay on your friends. When your column appeared, my wife read it out loud to me at the dinner table. We both voted no.
The most bitter letters of all came from Category Four: parents of teenagers in trouble. Where are the joys of parenthood? asked a Washington, D.C., mother. We havent seen them. But weve seen a good deal of security guards whove caught our daughter shoplifting. We have also seen policemen who picked up our youngest son for selling drugs on the school grounds. Weve seen some very depressing emergency rooms where the older boys were taken by an ambulance after totaling two cars and one motorcycle. My husband and I keep asking ourselves, What did we do wrong? but Im not sure anything could have saved our kids. The pressures to steal and do drugs are tremendous. Two other couples we know are having the same problems with their kids.
Parents with traumatic problems that involve police and hospitals are definitely in the minority. What about the majority?
Why are they sorry they had children?
Many, I believe, are disappointed because their children failed to live up to their parents secret expectations. Every mother wants her daughter to be beautiful and popular, especially if she wasnt. When the daughter turns out to be neither, the mother feels let down.
Dad, who didnt make the high school football team and couldnt get into Harvard, nurtures the secret hope that his son will succeed where he failed. Nothing is ever said, of course, but the nonverbal communication is at work and Junior gets the message. Getting the message is easy, but doing what Dad wants isnt. So Dad is disappointed and Junior feels inadequate and rejected.
Too many parents have a grossly unrealistic approach to parenthood. Everybody loves a cute little baby but nobody wants an 11-year-old who socks a teacher, a 14-year-old who steals money from his grandmothers purse, or a 16-year-old who is hooked on drugs.
The disenchantment often sets in early. When a young couple has to miss the party of the year because the sitter didnt show up, they cant help resenting the child who kept them home. Add to this, walking the floor with a colicky baby, no more romantic vacations, and a bill from the orthodontist for $3,000. They ask themselves, Who needed this?
*
Are there some invisible components to help explain that staggering 70-percent negative response? Some missing pieces to the puzzle? I see one, for sure. The person who is against something rather than for it is much more readily inclined to take pen in hand and express his anxiety, rage, or disappointment. People who are contented are rarely motivated to write and tell me how happy they are. Anger, hostility and resentment are often the fuel that moves people to action.
Am I saying that many parents who voted No are disappointed, resentful, and angry? Indeed I am. They feel ripped off. Heartbroken In Long Island wrote, God knows we did our best. My husband and I even took some night-school classes to learn how to be better parents. We followed the book, did all the right things, but two out of three of our children turned out bad. I dont believe we failed them. They failed us.
If it is true that a large percentage of the parents in this country are sorry they had children, why dont we hear more from them? Because such an admission goes against the grain of what we have been taught is human nature. Parents are supposed to love their children no matter what. To speak disparagingly of ones offspring is socially hazardous.
Trouble with a husband, on the other hand, is a common topic over teacups, luncheon tables, bridge hands and telephones. By the same token, a battle with the little woman is discussed candidly at bars and clubswherever men meet. Plain talk about marital problems is a national sport, because everyone knows no marriage is perfect. But parents who have trouble with their children are inclined to keep their mouths shutunless their troubles have been in the newspapers, or the parents happen to be in the company of other parents who they know are having trouble with their children.
Common misery can make strange bedfellows. A striking example of this was described in a letter from a couple of No voters who had to appear in court when their son was arrested for selling speed. Two other sets of parents whose sons were involved in the same ring also turned up in the judges chambers.
We didnt have one thing in common with those people except our childrens arrest, wrote one of the mothers from Detroit. They were definitely from the other side of the tracks. But when you have the same kind of trouble, you become brothers and sisters under the skin.
*
If I had polled my readers 20 years ago about their feelings toward their children, would the response have been the same? I believe not. While it is true that children have rebelled against their parents from time immemorial (rebellion is a normal symptom of growing up and achieving independence), never in the history of our country have the rebellious young managed to generate so much bitterness and alienation.
Our children have far more effective weapons to use against us than we had when we were rebelling. They have ready access to smoking lounges in high schools, communes that feature kooky, far-out religions, and college campuses that permit students to live with members of the opposite sex. (You can like it or lump it, folks, because the colleges say they are not responsible for the morals of the students. But dont forget to send in that tuition check.)
Yes, the game has changed and so have the rules. More radical switches have taken place in our society in the last 20 years than in the previous 200. Parenthood was never easy, but it is far more difficult than ever before.
Todays parents find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the steady barrage of violence (not to mention garbage) on TVthe electronic baby-sitter. Our children are bombarded with magazine ads for pornographic literature and art that would shatter a glass eye at 40 paces. We have the Pill, pit, LSD, booze for 18-year-olds, and skin flicks featuring kinky sex with close-ups of everything two peopleand sometimes three or fourcan possibly do together.
Our young people have no heroes. They have seen their country lose a war for the first time in its history. They have heard their President say, I am not a crook, and resign rather than face impeachment. They have seen their Vice President plead no contest to a charge of tax fraud and leave office in disgrace.
Polls show the average American has equal regard for politicians and used-car salesmen.
God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world.
It is no cinch to produce well-balanced, emotionally healthy children in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety and at a time when the values of an earlier erathe work ethic, discipline, firm guidelines and reward for excellenceare rejected as old fashioned. Granted, these past 20 years have been extremely difficult for both parents and children. My heart aches for all who are caught in the switches of this transition period.
Still I am boggled by that 70 percent. No way could I have responded No to that question. My daughter, Margo, has been a joy to menot the perfect child, mind you, but our problems have been few and of no great significance. It would be utterly impossible to imagine what my life would have been like without her.
But Margo is now 36 years old and she has three children of her own, one a teenager. Would I be so joyous about parenthood if Margo were 15? I doubt it.
If You Had It To Do Over AgainWould You Have Children?
By Ann Landers
It was a simple enough letter. A young couple about to be married wrote to ask for guidance. They were undecided. They just couldnt make up their minds whether or not to have a family.
So many of our friends, the letter said, seem to resent their children. They envy us our freedom to go and come as we please. Then theres the matter of money. They say their kids keep them broke. One couple we know had their second child in January. Last week, she had her tubes tied and he had a vasectomyjust to make sure. All this makes me wonder, Ann Landers. Is parenthood worth the trouble? Jim and I are very much in love. Our relationship is beautiful. We dont want anything to spoil it. All around us we see couples who were so much happier before they were tied down with a family. Will you please ask your readers the question: If you had it to do over again, would you have children?
I printed that letter and the sky fell in. The word didnt come from Chicken Little. It came straight from the gut of young parents and old parents, from Anchorage to San Antonio. I heard from Junior Leaguers and welfare mothers. The Boston Brahmins wrote and so did the hill people of Kentucky. I had struck an unprecedented number of raw nerves. The question unleashed an incredible torrent of confessionsthings I could never tell anyone else
After five days of reading, counting, and sorting mail, a bleary-eyed staff of eight secretaries announced we had received over 10,000 responses, andare you ready for this?70 percent of those who wrote said, No. If I had it to do over again, I would not have children.
Twenty years of writing the Ann Landers column has made me positively shockproof. Or so I thought. But I was wrong. The results of that poll left me stunned, disturbed, and just plain flummoxed.
Could it be? Not only could it be, it is. The message came through loud and clear. Wake up and smell the coffee, Annie old girl. Your readers had blown the American Dream. Motherhood, which always rated right up there with apple pie, Old Glory and the U.S. Marines was due for a reassessment.
About 40 percent of those who wrote to say, No. I would not have children if I had it to do over again, didnt sign their names. On the other hand, nearly all the letter that said, Yes. Our children have brought us great happiness, bore signatures. A number of those who expressed the latter view asked me to print their letters. Many said, You can use my name if you want to.
Approximately 80 percent of the total response came from women. The average letter ran almost a page longer than the usual Landers letter. I was particularly moved by the intensity of feeling.
Dozens who wrote said, I am weeping as I write this. Its the first time I have ever put such thoughts about my children down on paper. Its painful.
Many readers who expressed shame and guilt signed their names and addresses but asked me not to respond. A Miami woman P.S.d, My mother-in-law makes her home with us. Her eyesight for envelopes is very bad, but its perfect for whats inside. If she found out I had written to you, I would never hear the end of it. Please dont answer in any way, shape or form.
The No mail fell into four major categories.
Category One: Young parents who were deeply concerned about global hunger, overpopulation and the possibility that we might incinerate ourselves with nuclear weapons. A San Francisco father expressed his sentiments candidly: The world is in lousy shape. We would feel guilty if we brought a child into this mess. Later, if we decide we want a family, we will adopt.
Category Two: Parents who stated frankly that their children had ruined their marriage. Our happiest years were the ones before the babies came, wrote an Atlanta woman. In those days, we had time for the theater, parties, rides in the country, weekend trips and best of alleach other. A wife who had signed her letter Too Late For Tears in Tampa wrote, I was a successful, attractive, career woman before I had these kids. Now Im an exhausted, shrieking, nervous wrecktoo tired for sex, conversation or anything else. A Chicago mother of four enclosed her check-out tape from the supermarket. The total was $61. This is what we spent on groceries last Thursday, she wrote. The price of food is out of sight. My husband was laid off for six weeks last winter and we had to accept help from my folks. It was humiliating. We love our kids but they are so damned expensive. Actually they havent given us that much pleasure. Wed have to vote no.
Category Three contained the most pathetic letters of all. They came from older parents whose children had grown up and left home. Manhattan Mom wrote with more rancor than self-pity. I get a postcard from the Bahamas at Christmastime. On Mothers Day, I get an azalea plant. In between, maybe two phone calls. I raised that boy alone. His father died of cancer when he was three. Some thanks I get.
A 63-year-old president of a large corporation in Cleveland apologized for writing in longhand But, he went on, Im ashamed to dictate this letter to my secretary. He described the camping trips, the evening devoted to watching their sons play football. The sacrifices (not money, he emphasized) in terms of time spent with their children. And now, he wrote sadly, they are too busy for us, but they seem to have plenty of time for their in-laws. Thank God we dont need anything from them, but it hurts not to be included in their lives. My wife and I talk about it to each other but no one else knows how we feel. Its not the sort of thing you lay on your friends. When your column appeared, my wife read it out loud to me at the dinner table. We both voted no.
The most bitter letters of all came from Category Four: parents of teenagers in trouble. Where are the joys of parenthood? asked a Washington, D.C., mother. We havent seen them. But weve seen a good deal of security guards whove caught our daughter shoplifting. We have also seen policemen who picked up our youngest son for selling drugs on the school grounds. Weve seen some very depressing emergency rooms where the older boys were taken by an ambulance after totaling two cars and one motorcycle. My husband and I keep asking ourselves, What did we do wrong? but Im not sure anything could have saved our kids. The pressures to steal and do drugs are tremendous. Two other couples we know are having the same problems with their kids.
Parents with traumatic problems that involve police and hospitals are definitely in the minority. What about the majority?
Why are they sorry they had children?
Many, I believe, are disappointed because their children failed to live up to their parents secret expectations. Every mother wants her daughter to be beautiful and popular, especially if she wasnt. When the daughter turns out to be neither, the mother feels let down.
Dad, who didnt make the high school football team and couldnt get into Harvard, nurtures the secret hope that his son will succeed where he failed. Nothing is ever said, of course, but the nonverbal communication is at work and Junior gets the message. Getting the message is easy, but doing what Dad wants isnt. So Dad is disappointed and Junior feels inadequate and rejected.
Too many parents have a grossly unrealistic approach to parenthood. Everybody loves a cute little baby but nobody wants an 11-year-old who socks a teacher, a 14-year-old who steals money from his grandmothers purse, or a 16-year-old who is hooked on drugs.
The disenchantment often sets in early. When a young couple has to miss the party of the year because the sitter didnt show up, they cant help resenting the child who kept them home. Add to this, walking the floor with a colicky baby, no more romantic vacations, and a bill from the orthodontist for $3,000. They ask themselves, Who needed this?
*
Are there some invisible components to help explain that staggering 70-percent negative response? Some missing pieces to the puzzle? I see one, for sure. The person who is against something rather than for it is much more readily inclined to take pen in hand and express his anxiety, rage, or disappointment. People who are contented are rarely motivated to write and tell me how happy they are. Anger, hostility and resentment are often the fuel that moves people to action.
Am I saying that many parents who voted No are disappointed, resentful, and angry? Indeed I am. They feel ripped off. Heartbroken In Long Island wrote, God knows we did our best. My husband and I even took some night-school classes to learn how to be better parents. We followed the book, did all the right things, but two out of three of our children turned out bad. I dont believe we failed them. They failed us.
If it is true that a large percentage of the parents in this country are sorry they had children, why dont we hear more from them? Because such an admission goes against the grain of what we have been taught is human nature. Parents are supposed to love their children no matter what. To speak disparagingly of ones offspring is socially hazardous.
Trouble with a husband, on the other hand, is a common topic over teacups, luncheon tables, bridge hands and telephones. By the same token, a battle with the little woman is discussed candidly at bars and clubswherever men meet. Plain talk about marital problems is a national sport, because everyone knows no marriage is perfect. But parents who have trouble with their children are inclined to keep their mouths shutunless their troubles have been in the newspapers, or the parents happen to be in the company of other parents who they know are having trouble with their children.
Common misery can make strange bedfellows. A striking example of this was described in a letter from a couple of No voters who had to appear in court when their son was arrested for selling speed. Two other sets of parents whose sons were involved in the same ring also turned up in the judges chambers.
We didnt have one thing in common with those people except our childrens arrest, wrote one of the mothers from Detroit. They were definitely from the other side of the tracks. But when you have the same kind of trouble, you become brothers and sisters under the skin.
*
If I had polled my readers 20 years ago about their feelings toward their children, would the response have been the same? I believe not. While it is true that children have rebelled against their parents from time immemorial (rebellion is a normal symptom of growing up and achieving independence), never in the history of our country have the rebellious young managed to generate so much bitterness and alienation.
Our children have far more effective weapons to use against us than we had when we were rebelling. They have ready access to smoking lounges in high schools, communes that feature kooky, far-out religions, and college campuses that permit students to live with members of the opposite sex. (You can like it or lump it, folks, because the colleges say they are not responsible for the morals of the students. But dont forget to send in that tuition check.)
Yes, the game has changed and so have the rules. More radical switches have taken place in our society in the last 20 years than in the previous 200. Parenthood was never easy, but it is far more difficult than ever before.
Todays parents find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the steady barrage of violence (not to mention garbage) on TVthe electronic baby-sitter. Our children are bombarded with magazine ads for pornographic literature and art that would shatter a glass eye at 40 paces. We have the Pill, pit, LSD, booze for 18-year-olds, and skin flicks featuring kinky sex with close-ups of everything two peopleand sometimes three or fourcan possibly do together.
Our young people have no heroes. They have seen their country lose a war for the first time in its history. They have heard their President say, I am not a crook, and resign rather than face impeachment. They have seen their Vice President plead no contest to a charge of tax fraud and leave office in disgrace.
Polls show the average American has equal regard for politicians and used-car salesmen.
God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world.
It is no cinch to produce well-balanced, emotionally healthy children in an atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety and at a time when the values of an earlier erathe work ethic, discipline, firm guidelines and reward for excellenceare rejected as old fashioned. Granted, these past 20 years have been extremely difficult for both parents and children. My heart aches for all who are caught in the switches of this transition period.
Still I am boggled by that 70 percent. No way could I have responded No to that question. My daughter, Margo, has been a joy to menot the perfect child, mind you, but our problems have been few and of no great significance. It would be utterly impossible to imagine what my life would have been like without her.
But Margo is now 36 years old and she has three children of her own, one a teenager. Would I be so joyous about parenthood if Margo were 15? I doubt it.
jodifla
WDW lover since 1972
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magic kingdom park said:
I got sidetracked on the Ann Landers thing, and don't think I replied directly to your question. I had a baby at 40. I had a breeze of a pregnancy. I don't have the energy that I would have had a 20 for a baby, but I have the patience, which I would have never had at 20.
There was a huge difference between me and the younger moms in my playgroup. They seemed so frantic all the time....I was by far the most laid-back, and I'm not that laid-back of a person. Age made the difference.
Autism certainly has a genetic component. My son is a late talker, and in our speech therapy, I see that folks with multiple kids normally have several of them needed the therapy. So you'll want to factor in the possibility of a lot more money for therapy.
TinkerbellMama
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magic kingdom park said:
The odds are overwhelmingly in your favor to have a healthy child, even at your, "advanced maternal age."
(I hate that terminology.) If you do decide to try for another child, PLEASE read up on the additional testing they will "offer" you as an older mom. It is not without risk, and unless you would contemplate an abortion if something were not perfect about your child, the testing is of very little practical use, IMO. I've heard a lot of women say they just want to be prepared for whatever is coming, but the problem is that (rarely, but it does happen) the testing itself can cause a miscarriage. That's a high price to pay for curiosity! 
Again, it's JMO that the testing is not safe or appropriate...I just wanted you to realize that you can decline and that it's not 100% safe or necessary. Good luck to you!
jodifla
WDW lover since 1972
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TinkerbellMama said:The odds are overwhelmingly in your favor to have a healthy child, even at your, "advanced maternal age."
I had a amnio, with no problems. I disagree that an amnio is of little practical use. There's lots of things they can do now in utero when they spot problems.
robinb said:
Bugs me to. As sad as a person who wants a child and never has one is (and I went through infertility), a regretted child is infinately more sad. And I know many people who I suspect regret their children - though as Jodi and Ann Landers point out - its not like it comes up.
I do know that my grandmother regrets my father. Has told him that. Its very sad.
Its hard to return a child. In addition to "talk to your OB about potential risks" I'd also encourage "think about why you want another child." Do you miss having a baby around? because babies grow up and grow into teenagers. One of the saddest families I've seen is a friends where the mom was "baby happy" - she had eight children, and no time for any of them after they turned three - she was all about babies. A friends sister has fourteen under the same desire. She has fortunately hit menopause, but its like Lord of the Flies with her older ones.
Kimkimba said:
I agree with this statement 110% !!!! My SIL is 47 and wishes she could haver had another. We are still on the fence (well I have hopped over, but dh is still there
) about another one and I am 31, he is almost 38. Still hoping for another disney princess here to go with our disney princes! My step kids are 11(dss) and 12 (dsd). Our 2 boys are 3 and 1, so there is an age gap, but nothing like others have posted here.
Alex2kMommy
<font color=purple>I'm going a little nutso myself
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I respectfully disagree that an amnio is of little value. A friend of mine, who had previously suffered a miscarriage, had an amnio. The tests indicated that the fetus had some sort of one-in-a-million fatal abnormality. It was doubtful the pregnancy would have gone full term, but if it had, the baby would die at birth. They terminated, because it would have been even more heartbreaking to continue knowing the outcome.
If unfortunate results would cause you to want to terminate the pregnancy, then go ahead with the testing. It's true, there are risks with the tests themselves, so weigh the risk of that as well. Always, always make an informed decision about any medical procedure.
If I'm remembering right, an amnio can be done at 12 - 14 weeks, a CVS can be done 10 - 12 weeks.
If unfortunate results would cause you to want to terminate the pregnancy, then go ahead with the testing. It's true, there are risks with the tests themselves, so weigh the risk of that as well. Always, always make an informed decision about any medical procedure.
If I'm remembering right, an amnio can be done at 12 - 14 weeks, a CVS can be done 10 - 12 weeks.
Alex2kMommy
<font color=purple>I'm going a little nutso myself
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Just a comment on the Ann Landers article:
This was not a well-controlled poll by any means, though it does have an interesting result. It makes sense that people who are regretful would be eager to respond and provide their story, whereas those who are happy and have no major complaints would not take the trouble. What would be really interesting is a truly scientific poll (random sampling) asking the same question!
Parenting is hard work, no question. You do need to give up a lot of personal pursuits in order to care for others, or at least do them less often. Some days (sometimes by the hour) kids are alternately loving, charming and funny, and annoying, snotty, unappreciative brats. Even the best kid has his moments, right?
Even when I have had it up to here with one of them, I never regret having him or his brother. In the trying moments, DH sometimes asks humorously, "Why did we have him again?" and I answer, "Because we love each other. And we love him." Oh, yeah...
It's the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the most rewarding. Wouldn't give it up for anything.
This was not a well-controlled poll by any means, though it does have an interesting result. It makes sense that people who are regretful would be eager to respond and provide their story, whereas those who are happy and have no major complaints would not take the trouble. What would be really interesting is a truly scientific poll (random sampling) asking the same question!
Parenting is hard work, no question. You do need to give up a lot of personal pursuits in order to care for others, or at least do them less often. Some days (sometimes by the hour) kids are alternately loving, charming and funny, and annoying, snotty, unappreciative brats. Even the best kid has his moments, right?
Even when I have had it up to here with one of them, I never regret having him or his brother. In the trying moments, DH sometimes asks humorously, "Why did we have him again?" and I answer, "Because we love each other. And we love him." Oh, yeah...
It's the hardest thing I've ever done, but also the most rewarding. Wouldn't give it up for anything.
The other interesting thing about the Ann Landers column is that they are responding that they regret their children. The OP already has kids and wants to add one. Presumably, she wouldn't want that if she regretted the ones she already had.
Some people do regret their last, though. There is a saying that "you always have one more child than you can easily handle" and there is some truth to that. Its easier to tell when you've become broken, then when you were just merely a little stretched - and when that last one is more trouble than all the previous ones (which last ones often are, perhaps that's why they are last), you can go from stretched to broken pretty fast.
Some people do regret their last, though. There is a saying that "you always have one more child than you can easily handle" and there is some truth to that. Its easier to tell when you've become broken, then when you were just merely a little stretched - and when that last one is more trouble than all the previous ones (which last ones often are, perhaps that's why they are last), you can go from stretched to broken pretty fast.
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