My cell phone rang the other day, and it was my 18-year-old calling while she was out running errands. My first thought, as it almost always is, was that she was in a car crash or was stranded on the side of the road after running out of gas. It turned out she was calling in response to a text I had just sent her saying, “Your baby sister used the potty for the first time!” What ensued was our eldest asking to put the 2-year-old on the phone so she could congratulate her. I heard our toddler shriek, then jump up and down with immense pride as she recounted her achievement, followed by my eldest’s congratulatory squeals.

If you had told me 10 years ago that, at 45, I would have both an adult child and a baby barely out of diapers, I would have laughed at you. I had fully imbibed the convincing cultural lie that the female body stops working after 35, that it is no longer meant for childbirth, maternity, or postpartum struggles. I also believed the lie that having a child in “old age” will derail your retirement dreams and you will most certainly leave that sweet baby robbed of normal childhood relationships with her siblings.

Those narratives are pernicious; they are loud, and women all over our country have adopted them. I’m here to offer something different.

But first, allow me to admit that not all of the struggles outlined by media, medical professionals, and anti-natal influencers are without a grain of truth. My husband and I are fully aware that we will be by far the oldest parents at our baby’s high school graduation (63 and 60, respectively). We also won’t be sending off our three older girls and traveling the world as empty-nesters in the next five years, and, yes, my body was far more tired when I was pregnant at 42 than it was when we had our first in 2008. All these things are true.

What is also true is that our three eldest were old enough to remember, in clear detail, their sister’s birth, and it absolutely changed their lives in the best possible way. They helped me during pregnancy, learned carefully about the great responsibility of carrying a child, fell in love with another human in a way I didn’t think possible from the moment they set eyes on her, and have each played a unique and beautiful role in raising her.

They adore her; she is “their” baby. Not just their sister, but something wholly special in a way that isn’t replicated when your children are all born two years apart. Sure, she’s a toddler and can be messy, naughty, and at times challenging. She is also the child who helped each of my girls to become more human, more adult, more sacrificial, and more alive. She has changed the way we live, the way we look at the world, and the way we consider our plans. She glued us all together in a way I didn’t think was possible and that I am unable to explain.

And, as for me, I don’t think I’ve ever loved something more than I love our family right this moment. These past few years have been the fastest and most joyful that I’ve ever had. Nothing has filled me with more happiness than watching all three sisters push and shove their way into Meg’s room when she wakes from a nap, literally cheering when they see her. This still happens every day — almost three years later.

Credit: Rachel Reeves

It has been so game-changing to have this fourth baby as an “older” mother. I’m not at all worried about the things that concerned me when I was a new mother to our firstborn. I don’t care if someone thinks I shouldn’t let her have a pacifier or that I shouldn’t feed her Kirkland brand formula. I’m not particularly worried about milestones or if she’ll be an early reader.

Yes, having children when you are young is ideal — it’s how God made our bodies after all — but something truly exceptional happens when you’re a “geriatric mom”: an acute understanding that those worries that come with youth only serve to eat up the precious moments you have while your babies are still young. I know how fast it all flies by. Hindsight, in this case, is helpful.

Our lives changed the moment we found out we were pregnant with Margaret. We gladly suffered through the side-eyes and predictable, “Are you going to be ok?” comments. We knew it was coming. Our culture has told women they are barren once they near their mid-30s, so we didn’t expect anything less.

For some, those double pink lines post-40 may have been a devastating revelation, but I hope that perhaps you can begin to think of it differently, to see the multiplicity of benefits of having a child when you are wiser, more self-assured, and more grounded. If that’s where you find yourself, I want to give you hope. Likewise, if you are still yearning for a child and have been told you are past your prime, perhaps you are, but that doesn’t mean the story is absolutely over.

We can start telling women that the Lord might have something more beautiful than we can craft for ourselves. Sometimes the most wonderful gifts come when we stop repeating a script about motherhood that isn’t truthful in the first place.

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Rachel Reeves is a wife and homeschool mother of four daughters. She works in political commentary at Here Are The Headlines, both on Instagram and Substack.

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I Had A Baby Young And Again In My 40s. The Difference Isn’t What You Think