Better Late Than Never
Daniel E. Hood
From: TICK TOCK: Essays on Becoming A Parent After 40 (Dottir Press, Sept. 2021)
Edited by Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin
Sometimes parenting after 40 is a necessity. Well, parenting is never a necessity really. But in our case, if we wanted to be parents, which we did, fate decided that it would have to be after 40. Married at 26 and just short of 21, respectively, Linda and I decided to put off kids for a while because we had educational goals pending—grad school for me, and two years for Linda to finish her BA. Over the next five years I finished an MA and began a PhD, while Linda finished her undergrad work and began to build a career in classical flute performance. It seemed too soon, we were too busy for a family.
As we approached our tenth anniversary Linda had become an office manager and software trainer; my doctorate had stalled and I was working at a research firm. We looked at each other one day and asked, almost in unison, “You think it’s time now?” Three of my five younger brothers had already started families and her younger sister had three kids. So we threw out the birth control devices and waited for nature to take its course.
And waited; and waited; and waited. After a few years without results, we began to suspect something biological might be amiss.
We consulted appropriate fertility professionals and learned that the impediment— whatever it was—lay on the distaff side of the equation. So, the professionals began testing and probing Linda every which way, with few immediate results.
After a year or two, with no confident diagnosis, we nevertheless became pregnant. It was a happy day. But should we tell the world? The doctors were cautious. Linda’s mother had had several miscarriages before giving birth to her. Her only sister was adopted. We decided not to tell our families until we had passed the third month, when, the doctors said, we could have more confidence in the viability of the pregnancy. We told a few close friends who had been following the medical adventures that Linda had endured, which included three trips to the OR for two D&Cs and an exploratory laparoscopy, as well as other procedures.
In the middle of our third month of pregnancy, my family held a reunion in Michigan, where we had all grown up in Detroit and its suburbs. Linda and I attended, and, although it was almost two weeks before the completion of our third month, we told the assembled family—my parents, five brothers, three sisters-in-law and assorted nieces and nephews—that we were expecting. The family was excitedly flabbergasted. We had been married nineteen years, I was 43, Linda was 38, and they all had given up hope long ago of our producing any offspring. Two happy days later, we drove to Indianapolis to visit Linda’s father, who had no idea of what was in store. Nor, as it turned out, did we.
Linda’s father was very disturbed by the news that she was pregnant. He, of course, was intimately familiar with her mother’s miscarriage history. (Linda’s mother had died five years earlier, and he was now remarried.) His concern was prescient. Two days later, Linda woke me to say she was spotting. Later that day I drove her to Indianapolis’s Methodist Hospital, where she was examined and rushed to the OR by a surgeon who coincidentally had studied with one of her New York doctors. The exam had revealed a cervical pregnancy and lifeless fetus. Another D&C ensued.
After a long wait, the doctor told me they were having difficulty stopping Linda’s bleeding and he wanted to perform a hysterectomy. I asked if there were any alternatives. (I had worked in an OR for six years while in grad school; I had read the feminist literature about male surgeons and uteruses; I knew how desperately Linda wanted a child.) He said, “Well, we could pack her uterus off overnight and hope the bleeding stops. But I don’t advise that.”
I said, “Let’s do that.” He was not happy. This decision meant having to resupply a surgical room in the morning, an extra procedure for the surgeon, more cost for the insurance company, and additional anesthesia for Linda if he was right. But, of course, he had to follow my wishes.
I spent a very restless night. My father-in-law assured me that they were praying for Linda and that God would do what was best. I relied on the six-pack I had picked up on the way back from the hospital. We arrived at Linda’s room early the next morning to learn that her bleeding had stopped during the night and she was being discharged. Two days later she and I drove sadly back to NYC.
Naturally, Linda was very upset by the whole process, but after several months, and with help from her former therapist, she decided to see the fertility docs and try again. They suggested she see an endocrinologist. The tests showed she had a thyroid insufficiency.
Two months of medication produced a pregnancy that, despite her dad’s distress, resulted in a beautiful ten-pound boy who became the central focus of our joint lives. After all those years, Michael’s birth was a small medical miracle. It also cemented our marriage, which had never been entirely solid prior to his “advent,” and thus was something of a connubial blessing as well as a neonatal one. Linda and I were still in love, even after nineteen years, but passion is rarely enough to sustain a relationship over the long haul. Michael’s addition to our lives gave Linda and me a shared purpose beyond ourselves, which we hadn’t had since courtship.
So, I became a father for the first time at 46 years of age. Linda was two months shy of 41. After nineteen years of married life, our son Michael was the result of several years of medical investigation and intervention as well as our desire and persistence. I still harbor guilt that Linda’s body had to bear all that medical “manipulation” even before it got to bear the burden of a nine-month pregnancy and painful delivery. Michael’s birth became the single most influential event in both our lives to that point. His birth—his broken collarbone and twenty-plus stitches to Linda’s birth canal to the contrary notwithstanding—was the best thing that ever happened to us. I still have that in black and white in her handwriting.
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Michael was a marvelous child. The most indicative anecdote I enjoy telling is that, after a taxi ride home from the hospital, he started crying the minute the apartment door shut behind us and literally did not stop for four hours. We tried everything the books recommended. Nothing soothed him. Linda and I looked at each other and asked, almost simultaneously, “Have we made a terrible mistake?” Then he stopped, as suddenly as he had begun. The number of times he cried seriously over the next twenty-five years can be counted on one hand. We wondered aloud if he figured out how old we were and decided to take it easy on us. He was, indeed, an ideal child in many ways.
Michael was not perfect, of course, and neither were his parents, but he was an easy child, a cooperative adolescent, and a successful high school student and athlete. The only serious trouble he got into was in college, which was as much the fault of the school as his and his friends’ behavior. And he recovered quickly to graduate with multiple honors, becoming the third and final family member to graduate from the same city university system. It may have been the happiest day of all our lives up to that point. The photos from outside Radio City, the graduation venue, show all smiles all around!
Before our quest for conception, my academic career had stalled at the ABD level, like so many others, and I was flailing about trying to find an alternative career I did not want. Michael’s arrival provided me with the opportunity to restart—and finish—my doctoral studies. Awaiting his birth, Linda and I had agreed that I would go back to grad school, continue teaching—both part time—and arrange my schedule to include significant primary childcare time. This plan allowed us to avoid leaving Michel every day with a full-time nanny, something none of us wanted.
Once Linda‘s six-week maternity leave was up, we started a pattern of care that lasted at least until middle school. Linda did her nine-to-five-plus job and took major responsibility for Michael’s care evenings and weekends. I typically did weekday mornings until I had class, as either student or teacher, when I would hand him off to a hired caregiver for the bulk of the afternoon. When school started, I typically walked him to his local elementary school and Wendy, his nanny, would pick him up and tend him ‘til Linda or I got home in the evening.
This schedule meant that Michael spent much of his “playground time” under the care of Wendy. Except, that is, for the weekends, when Linda was in charge. What that often meant was that Michael introduced Linda to the other playground parents and a variety of other neighborhood regulars including some local merchants. It was not unusual, at least initially, for adults to greet Michael and then exclaim, “Are you with your lovely grandmother today?” This social faux pas occurred more often when a younger woman, Linda’s niece or cousin, accompanied them on occasion. But as this crowd got to know Linda, that ritual largely stopped occurring. However, it never failed to ruffle her feathers, and she made sure each misperception was promptly corrected.
Well before he was born, Linda had abandoned her musical career to climb the corporate ladder via her expertise in software management. Nevertheless, she continued to pursue music recreationally, in ecclesiastical and community settings—choirs by and large—with few opportunities for vocal and/or flute solos. Michael‘s arrival changed this in ways that heightened Linda’s sense of musical fulfillment and enjoyment of life in general. From the age of ten, Michael spent most of his Sunday mornings engaged in organized baseball or soccer, almost always with both of us in attendance. As a result, Linda chose to give up her longtime participation in Episcopal Church choirs as well as her attendance at Sunday morning services, but she wanted to continue attending church both for herself and Michael.
Because of Michael’s sports schedule, we (re)discovered our local Mennonite Church. I had gotten my BA at a Mennonite college, and we were married at a Mennonite Church in Indiana, but we had maintained many connections with Menno friends when we moved to New York City. The local Mennonite congregation met at 5 PM on Sundays. The timing was perfect for us: no morning services. We all began attending regularly and were involved in the life and operation of Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship over the next decade. I eventually served as congregational chairperson and Linda very quickly assumed responsibility for the music direction of this small congregation.
>br>While only some of the talent was professional, all Mennonites have a well-earned reputation for their musical abilities. Linda could spread her musical wings in ways never before possible with the Episcopalians. She directed and sang with choirs and performed flute and vocal solos and ensembles at her own discretion; and she also played piano and led congregational singing for Sunday afternoon services as necessary. All because Michael’s sports enthusiasm prompted her to leave the Episcopalians and rediscover the Mennonites.
Around this same time, I abandoned my quasi-weekly Sunday rock climbing outings in upstate NY and exchanged them for voluntary umpiring for Michael’s Little League. That eventually morphed into a career as a high school umpire, which I continue to enjoy to this day, thanks again to Michael.
Michael’s second contribution to Linda’s musical life came in 2003, when we were casting about for an exciting place to vacation. The two of us could not settle on a location, so we asked Michael where he would like to go. He said Ireland. He was taking a course on the history of Ireland. It was a lovely trip. But the best thing about it was Linda’s discovery of Irish traditional music. She was thoroughly entranced, and interviewed musicians at every “seisun” (the Gaelic term for an informal performance) we visited all over Dublin, Cork and Drogheda.
When we returned to Manhattan, Linda began seeking out Irish Trad venues and by the next year was performing regularly with a couple of groups. It was a more welcoming and mutually supportive environment than the competitive music circles she encountered years before. Groups were plentiful and varied enough in Manhattan’s numerous Irish pubs that she could find sessions that welcomed newbies as well as more accomplished venues as she improved quickly over the years.
I had never seen her more excited about a new music venture. Her longest and most intense involvement was with the Washington Square Harp and Shamrocks Orchestra (WSHSO) in Saturday afternoon sessions at Lillie’s Tavern on Union Square and other NYC venues like the Irish Consulate, St Patrick’s Cathedral, and WFUV’s local Irish radio. As a result of this immersion in Irish music, Linda realized a lifelong dream: she performed a vocal solo on a New York stage—at Symphony Space—and recorded the solo with WSHSO on a professional CD, sales of which benefit a children’s AIDS charity.
When Michael was 25 and Linda six months from retirement, our lives took a tragic turn. He was poised to move out and begin his career as a paramedic when Linda collapsed one morning and died on our kitchen floor. Michael was with her and performed CPR until the three ambulance crews arrived. But to no avail. There was a blood clot blocking her pulmonary artery, which was attributable in part to a localized estrogen treatment she used to ease post-menopausal symptoms. It may also have been related to whatever had caused her and her mother’s multiple miscarriages. But the autopsy report listed multiple contributing factors. At that point, nothing could have saved her.
It is impossible for me to convey in print how happy and productive Linda was in this last decade of life as a result of our return to the Mennonite tradition and her discovery of Irish traditional music. Neither would have occurred without Michael’s “tardy” arrival. Nor would I have finished my doctorate and received two university appointments or become a high school umpire. Michael consolidated our family life for the better and presented his parents with opportunities for self-fulfillment we would have otherwise never known. Michael, now an accomplished Rescue Paramedic with the FDNY, was and is by all measures a godsend—absolutely better late than never.
