FAMILY TIMES
Judy Gibson
Dells Events
Aug. 4, 2001
Nancy’s great book about first time moms in midlife
Nancy London starts her book, “Hot Flashes and Warm Bottles” with a story about how she fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion before she could leave her nine-year-old daughter a gift from the tooth fairy.
This tale of a “first-time mother over forty” continues with the jolt she had in the morning when her daughter came sobbing into the kitchen because the tooth fairy hadn’t come.
“Good grief,” thought Nancy, “I’m too tired to be the tooth fairy.”
With first hand experience on the issue and a background as a licensed therapist in Santa Fe, Nancy realized she might not be the only one in this position so she set about putting together a support group for first-time mother’s over 40 and then pulled it all together in a book.
Anyone who has eagerly waited for a child for more than 40 years, perhaps going through fertility treatments, will relate to the experiences in the book of women who have such mixed feelings about finally having a child only to realize that they are in the time of their own lives that they could be winding down a bit for a well deserved rest.
This dichotomy creates a kind of psychological dissonance that can devastate an woman and her family. The wonderful, very much wanted child, sometimes taxes the older mom to the limit.
London was one of the original members of the Boston Women’s Health Collective and one of the writers for the book “Our Bodies Ourselves” published in the late 60s.
“I believed we could have it all, be it all, do it all . . . it has been a gradual awakening on my part to understand that choices we make do bear consequences.”
She begins with an unstinting look at her own experience, finally carrying a child to term after several devastating miscarriages in her 30s, delivering a beautiful, healthy child at 43. She writes at that time she felt young, vital and capable of juggling it all, but nine years later she was exhausted, impatient and irritable with “a growing desire for solitude.”
The book is divided into chapters dealing with such topics as menopause and balancing work and motherhood, and goes on to include information and supportive tips on the infertility mill and adoption. She also has a chapter for those moms who have a second family after 40 and includes stories from single mothers and lesbian moms.
When Nancy put out a notice for interested women in the Santa Fe area she was flooded with calls and now gets inquiries from all over the country as many more women delay childbirth. From 1980 to 1995 the birth rate for women from 40 to 44 increased 81 percent.
Life issues at 40 are very different than at 30, and perhaps more relevant are the life stages of mom (and dad) as the child grows up.
I talked to Nancy while I was in Santa Fe recently and she told me she had heard of a 60-year-old woman who had a baby in California with the help of a donor egg and hormone treatments. The “envelope”of the birth experience keeps getting pushed.
This timely book would be a help to anyone already in the situation, contemplating having a child, or for professionals dealing with the older mother.
One of the charming things about the book are Nancy’s tales about her own daughter. She interviewed her for the book to help give the child’s perspective.
Her daughter told her, “Sometimes you’re tired right after you wake up, and it’s like HELLO – that’s a really quick day.”
“Hot Flashes Warm Bottles” is available from Celestial Arts on Amazon.com.