We had babies in our 40s.
We are grateful. Of course we are. But fuuuuuuuuck, we feel about a thousand years old in terms of energy. Pretty sure we wouldn't be this destroyed if it was just the two of us. Our lives are just about surviving.
Am not explaining this well. And will await the barrage of "Well at least you're not infertile/a single parent". Yep I know. First World problems and all that.
But I didnt feel this exhausted when we were trying to conceive. We felt pretty good back then. Like we were still in our thirties! Everything was awesome! We had parents and friends and hey, even a social life!
Parents were elderly sure, but we were so happy to give them grandchildren. 3 out of 4 gone now in the space of 4 years.
Friends are busy with their own kids, everyone always so busy. Lots of friends have teenagers, chuckle indulgently at how old and fucked we look cos they went through it too - yeah, but at 32!
No energy to have sex, no energy to have hobbies, no energy left after work and creche and Big School and nappies and toilet training and trying to get dummies out of mouths and trying to make dinners everyone will eat but nobody does.
No family, no cousins, no wider circle. The worry of them not making connections, the worry of having to make them join clubs or they'll have nobody, the worry one of us will get something bad in our 50s and the kids won't even have finished school yet. The worry about having to make enough money to take care of ourselves in old age cos older parents = early burden. It is just us 4. It is so small. I worry they will feel the claustrophobia. Its not my fault, but actually maybe it is, for not having them 10 years ago when cousins were younger and friends kids were younger.
We look at each other and know there's no safety net. It's scary. School want to assed eldest for sensory issues. Am terrified. I feel old as hell.
We try to be kind to each other, we are OK at that. But I wish we were younger. We would get out of bed quicker, we would move faster, we re just so tired all the time. He thinks he has arthritis in his hands now, jesus that's something that old people have. We both wear varifocals now. And one still in nappies who still wakes up in the night half the time - why didn't we foresee this??! We thought we would feel young forever.
I ask colleagues on Monday what did you do over the weekend? "Oh we brought the kids up to grandma's for Sunday roast, what did you do?" "Oh nothing much, went to the playground/the beach, no didn't meet up with any family, no"
Why don't people talk about this? It makes a difference - 35 to 45. It really does. You lose so much family. You lose so much energy.its so hard.
I don't even want to read this back, it probably is ungrateful.