I'm Expecting a Baby at 42 yrs old

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Baby bjorn is forward facing until 3 months. Baby faces Mom or dad.
 
Don’t be dismayed if your parish does not have a mom’s group. They are not in every parish 🙂
 
True. Consider grabbing 2 moms after mass. You three could be a moms group in a less formal sense just meeting for park playdates and such. Eventually someone who is a mover and a shaker will get involved.
 
Thank you. I will pray to God to please help lead me too as I search local parishes. My personality is very reserved, I’m a mover and shaker with things for my family but it stops there. I’m hopeful to find a few moms and hopefully the fact that I’m a full time working mom won’t affect the social aspect to a terrible degree.
 
Strange the way the mind works, I was on my local church bulletin looking for a moms group and all of a sudden I see a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land being offered (for a fee) and immediately my heart sank when I remembered I always wanted to go and was waiting for my kids to get older. Then I calculated the years ahead when I’ll be able to do that after this new baby and I would be 60.
Then another thought plopped in my head that the land of eternity with my Lord is far greater than even Jerusalem where He walked and I have to wait. Now ofcourse the Vatican is another place. But many holy and wonderful people and even the saints never walked those lands so actually even typing this I feel better already.
 
My cousin goes on tours to the Holy Land regularly they often take their children. If you want to go, you don’t have to wait until your kids are grown.
 
You’ve had some excellent encouragement so far, so I’ll address a couple of specific points.
MarthaSo said:
For some strange reason the only thing I can think of now are my two older children, how cute they were when they were little, how they always were close in age and had eachother, how we all went on family trips together.

And now, with this new baby, there will be no more ‘4 of us’ like its been almost 20 years. Why can’t I be happy. I miss the four of us. There will be no more trips together with kids close in age.
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Well, for one thing, there CAN still be trips together, only this time with a baby in tow. Or with money getting tighter, plan a camping trip before the baby arrives. I’ve made wonderful memories meeting my extended family on the coast. Baby or no baby, things have changed and will continue changing. It’s a bittersweet reality.
MarthaSo said:
I also feel we will have to downsize our lifestyle and home and that makes me feel bad, like because of this new child, my other 2 children will have to have a smaller home and less money on them. (I know that sounds bad but I need to be honest to get the best advice sorry)
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I lamented about this when I got pregnant with my third. We were living in a three-bedroom house at the time. Then after he was born, life circumstances compelled us to cram into a tiny apartment, and we are still there.

It’s far from ideal, but it’s not the big deal that I thought it would be. Now the kids live just a stone’s throw away from their friends and have access to a pool. I volunteer with refugee families who cram 10 into a 3-bedroom apartment. So I try to refrain from complaining, although that’s easier said than done. :roll_eyes:
MarthaSo said:
I don’t really have any friends but that never bothered me as an adult. I’ve always said Jesus is all I need.
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Also see if your local area has a La Leche League or MOMS Club.
God bless!
 
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OK, I just saw you’re scoping out the mama groups. Perfect!

My mom walked the Camino de Santiago at age 74. Just sayin’ . . . 😃
 
Yes, you’re right. I’m not sure why my mind went there. I would love to go with everyone but that’s likely not financially possible. The local parishes don’t have expecting moms group, one has a mommy and me. There is a meetup group in my area but in reading some of the information I don’t feel I will get along with these women. But I’m not disheartened I feel as though I’ll meet someone.
 
MarthaSo said:
and immediately my heart sank when I remembered I always wanted to go and was waiting for my kids to get older.
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I always feel this way about retreats I see in the bulletin. Some day!
 
Wow that’s ANOTHER thing my husband and I wanted to do. God bless her!!
 
Are you in the U.S.? If you live near a chapter of Babywearing International, they have a lending library or baby carriers and can show you how to use them. Women and babies both have strong preferences, so it’s good to try them out.

They’re also expensive, but the folks at B.I. may be able to hook you up with a used one.

cfah.org

What Is Babywearing: Benefits, Safety Tips, and How-To

If you’ve recently become a parent, you are probably overwhelmed..
cfah.org cfah.org

I used the Baby Hawk mei tai.
 
It’s normal, I think. By the time your baby is four or five, your teenage daughter will be in her 20s.
A fun week at big Sis’ apartment will sound awesome! I don’t think you’ll have to wait until you’re 60!
 
Sure. It’s important to adjust how you carry your baby, based on their development. In those early months, it’s important to give them extra support via a mom-facing orientation until their neck muscles develop.

But you still don’t stress their pelvis by giving them a carrier with bad support at any stage of development. Bad support is bad, regardless of how old the baby is. Baby Bjorn had a popular product that was one of the earlier offenders— but they’ve developed products since then that addressed the issue. So it’s important to be an educated consumer, and not accidentally buy the model that’s the bad one, because you don’t know what to look for when evaluating whether something will fit the baby’s needs as well as the mom’s. You don’t want to spend $90 on a carrier that the baby hates because it’s uncomfortable for lengthy periods of time! 🙂

So, the photo above with the straight-dangly-legs was a bad product from Baby Bjorn. Here are some examples of Baby Bjorn offering a much better product:
 
Children, every young children, are allowed into other countries (big grin here). Travel is one of the most valuable gifts you can give to a child.

On the other hand, there is nothing that says you cannot go on pilgrimage with your spouse, friends, just your teens, while baby stays with a sitter.
 
Thank you for stating the obvious lol, my mind always wanders into negative susyland, I don’t kniw why. It will be interesting to see what I’m woe-is-me’ing about next. One thing I do want to do is have a stronger prayer life. I always feel like I “miss” the Lord.
 
My parents had a “trailer” child, too, when my mom was 42, as it happens. She was worried because she was on all sorts of medications when he was conceived, but he was 100% healthy. He was so cute and such a ham for any camera that the baby photographer used his picture for one of his in-studio advertisements.

Now he’s all grown and a wonderful guy. My sons also have a friend who is far younger than his siblings…his parents adore him and he is also a wonderful guy. This isn’t as unusual as you might think. We didn’t have our children until my husband was about your age (because we married so late in life) and we weren’t the only parents occasionally mistaken for grandparents, not by a long shot. It is OK. They’re starting college and he’s going to be retiring as soon as he can, but we’re OK and we’re not alone.

There is so much you know about parenting and such a great perspective you’ll have that you could not have had for the first time around. I don’t know how many times my mother said, “he’s so great at this age, I wish I could just keep him here.” Over and over and over, I know that. He even had cousins who were barely younger than he was. They all got along great. He did well, and if anything he is my parents’ favorite and had siblings old enough to spoil him and “parent” him instead of competing with him. They’ll take him places that you used to take him–you just watch and see.
 
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God bless you. Thank you very much. That made me feel really great. Many blessings to you and your family.
 
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