Behind the hatch: the highs and lows of running a food truck in Ireland
Behind the hatch: the highs and lows of running a food truck in Ireland

James Gabriel Martin

June Guide: 22 of the best events happening this month
June Guide: 22 of the best events happening this month

Sarah Gill

Passion Project: ‘We have just grown far beyond anything I could have planned’
Passion Project: ‘We have just grown far beyond anything I could have planned’

Lauren Heskin

Image / Self / Real-life Stories / Relationships / Parenthood
premium
SELF

Let’s not shame women who want to have a baby in their 40s, for ‘geriatric’ pregnancies, for choosing to wait


by Mairead Heffron
17th Oct 2022

Unsplash

Mairead Heffron: 'I was well into the category of older mother when I had my boys. Once it would have been called a ‘geriatric pregnancy’, now it’s usually called ‘advanced maternal age’. In my experience, many women feel shamed for the choice to wait. Even when it hardly feels like a choice.'

Moments after my second baby was born, still high on a powerful cocktail of endorphins and oxytocin, I had that thought. Later, still filled with elation and love from the birth I so wanted and at home, surrounded by familiarity and family, it came again. “When can I do this again?” I didn’t voice it – surely it was only the crazed sounds of the hormones talking. But in the following months that turned to...

You have reached a premium article.

For unlimited digital access to the stories worth paying for, subscribe now to IMAGE from just €4.99 a month
Subscribe