When you think you're in menopause, but you're actually pregnant

Between decreasing fertility and menopause, I figured by age 50, "happy accidents" would no longer be a concern for women. Welp I was wrong! This 50-year-old lady was told she was menopausal and had a "nearly zero" percent chance of getting pregnant and didn't find out she was actually pregnant until she was too far along to do anything about it.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/grandmother-believed-menopause-gives-birth-age-50-014703250.html

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Article
Despite the shock, however, the couple saw the new baby as a blessing — even if it meant postponing their plans to travel after Aubrey eventually left the nest.

Yeah sure they did. I can practically taste the resentment in that sentence. Also, they aren't "postponing" their plans - they can straight up fucking forget ever doing them because they just signed on for another 20+ year sentence. By the time they get this kid out of the fucking nest, they'll be in their 70s and that's if they even live that long. They might not be healthy enough to travel by then. Between Moo's advanced age (as far as breeding goes), her health problems, her child coming out a month early and the fact she got no pre-natal care until later on, I wonder how many problems this kid will have. Will these people have the energy to wrangle a possibly sick child at their ages? Not that 50 is old, but they aren't younguns anymore. Also, that lady looks like she's in her 70s. I guess that's what calving at 15 will do to you.

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Article
But this will officially be their last child: During the C-section, Michele opted to remove her fallopian tubes. “I’m 100 percent sure I’m not having any more kids,” she told the outlet. She added, “[Grayson]’s a blessing.”

HORSE. SHIT. Nobody has an accidental loaf at 50 and calls it a blessing for real. I love how Moo just kinda tosses it in there as a side note too. Starting all over again with this parenting shit and have to give up our plans to travel...um, oh yeah, but he's a blessing!!!

I'm not saying this is the Moo's fault since it's obvious the brat wasn't planned and I think a vast majority of women would assume that by 50, the eggs have sailed past their expiration date. I feel bad for her, honestly. Too late to abort, probably couldn't give it up for adoption without being guilt-tripped by her family, and I'm sure none of her more able-bodied older kids wanted to adopt it. I wonder if being 50 would qualify a woman for a later-term abortion exception.

One thing I will give her props for is that this lady still got game. I guess part of me always figured that sex stops once you hit a certain age, especially for women who are in menopause. Makes me happy to know that there's a chance I'll still have the itch if/when I reach that age.

What the Hell? She had her first kid at 15 and her last kid at 50? Both scenarios are the stuff that nightmares are made of.

The media and fertility doctors are always hyping up how it's impossible to get pregnant after 35, but I I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I have a couple of Aunts who had what they used to call "change babies." It's very possible.

So glad all my parts are gone.

Great cautionary tale. I'm not stopping birth control until 5 I hit at least 5 years of no cycles and confirm it with a doctor. My mother didn't hit menopause until her mid-50's.

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bell_flower
What the Hell? She had her first kid at 15 and her last kid at 50? Both scenarios are the stuff that nightmares are made of.

From what I'm seeing, she has three kids who are all independent adults at this point and I'm guessing she's a stepmother to her husband's teen daughter. Her kids are 34, 28, 24, and then the 14-year-old stepkid. Her middle child has two children of her own already too. Apparently she had absolutely no symptoms of pregnancy either, like morning sickness or weight gain. Probably just denial, but to be fair, how many 50-year-old women assume that a bout of nausea or getting a little fat is from pregnancy?

What a kick in the taint. They had four more years on their sentence with the teen girl and went and fucked it all up. I sure hope that was one hell of a magical roll in the hay for Moo and Duh.

53 years of child rearing or death, whichever comes first.

It's hard to tell if the 14 year old is her and Jerry's kid. It refers to her as a "mother of four" prior to this pregnancy so at first I thought she birthed the 14 year old kid, but elsewhere it reads that she "shares" her 14 hear old daughter with her current husband, so it probably is a step kid. It also does not say how long they have been married.

Not the best writing but OTOH there is a lot going on in these Breeder's lives. Perhaps Breeders are offended by the term "stepchild" now, so the writer avoided using the term.

If I were the 14 year old and I had a decent relationship with my mother (let's hope her mother hasn't been an idiot and married some creep) I would be hightailing it back to my mom's house because these Breeders are probably thinking of "built-in babysitter" and they'll be dumping the kid on her. I predict a lecture about obligations to help out the family may be in this kid's life.

Realistically, the travel thing is a joke anyway. The 50 year old has serious illness. Pregnasty can sometimes help autoimmune disorders because the immune system ramps itself down to carry a zygote, but lupus can be quite serious. What happens if she becomes disabled or is an invalid?

This event is not a blessing for a 50 year old person with a serious illness.

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bell_flower
If I were the 14 year old and I had a decent relationship with my mother (let's hope her mother hasn't been an idiot and married some creep) I would be hightailing it back to my mom's house because these Breeders are probably thinking of "built-in babysitter" and they'll be dumping the kid on her. I predict a lecture about obligations to help out the family may be in this kid's life.

Realistically, the travel thing is a joke anyway. The 50 year old has serious illness. Pregnasty can sometimes help autoimmune disorders because the immune system ramps itself down to carry a zygote, but lupus can be quite serious. What happens if she becomes disabled or is an invalid?

This event is not a blessing for a 50 year old person with a serious illness.

All of this. It may have been too late for an abortion, but not for adoption-- the pregnancy was an accident, but the decision to ruin their lives and the lives of both of those kids* is a choice. Stellar adulting and parenting, there.


*Older and seriously ill is a terrible combination for a new parent. That new kid is going to have a miserable childhood.

I'm sure they felt adoption wasn't an option because Gawd doesn't give you anything you can't handle! And you know the Duh is strutting around going, "OH YEAH! STILL GOT IT!" thinking that he's such a manly man that he can knock up a barren woman. Fucking honestly, between this woman's health and age, I think she could have found a doctor to remove the parasite on the basis that giving birth would pose a threat to her health. I would be surprised if any doctor with two brain cells to rub together would have encouraged her to continue the pregnancy even if she was in her second trimester.

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bell_flower
If I were the 14 year old and I had a decent relationship with my mother (let's hope her mother hasn't been an idiot and married some creep) I would be hightailing it back to my mom's house because these Breeders are probably thinking of "built-in babysitter" and they'll be dumping the kid on her. I predict a lecture about obligations to help out the family may be in this kid's life.

Absolutely. Unlike the grown kids who flew the nest, the teenager still relies on her parents to care for her, and given her mother's health, I wouldn't be surprised if she was tasked/guilted with the job of caring for both her mother and her little sister. Not to mention that I'm sure everyone's going to get to put up with Moo's post-partum depression now too. Can you have PPD and menopause at the same time? Fucking christ I hope not, it sounds like a nightmare not only for the Moo, but everyone around her.

The way the articles covering this talk, it sounds like the teen girl lives with the parents long-term, probably because either her bio-mother is dead or fucked up bad enough to lose custody to the father.

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freya
Great cautionary tale. I'm not stopping birth control until 5 I hit at least 5 years of no cycles and confirm it with a doctor. My mother didn't hit menopause until her mid-50's.

Mom birthed me when she was 47 years old. I was an accident.
Next month it will be 1 year (12 consecutive months) that I don't have a period. I'm in the 0.01% of women who have a partial hysterectomy yet still have tiny periods every month.

I'll be 56 in April.

This shit really happens. It isn't happy or a blessing.

I think the general rule with autoimmune diseases is they improve while you're pregnant but return with a vengeance after the loaf is born. So you end up with a very sick woman trying to take care of a helpless newborn. What a shitty situation for both of them.

Moo definitely should have tried to get a late term abortion, or failing that put the kid up for adoption. I don't understand why people insist on keeping loaves in shitty situations like this one. That kid did not ask to be born, and there is no way those parents are not going to resent it. And it seems unfair to have a baby when there are existing kids in their teens, at that age it disrupts their life too much and they get pushed to constantly babysit. These breeders did a fine job of fucking up their lives and their children's lives.

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Peace
Mom birthed me when she was 47 years old. I was an accident.

My aunt got pregnant by mistake around the same age too. Lotsa drama surrounding that mess since she got pregnant by her side dish, refused to abort because Jesus, married said side dish so her son wouldn't be a bastard AND without telling her boyfriend she had a husband and a kid by someone else. I just hope her kid never finds out how much turmoil surrounded his birth because he never asked to be born.

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ondinette
Moo definitely should have tried to get a late term abortion, or failing that put the kid up for adoption. I don't understand why people insist on keeping loaves in shitty situations like this one. That kid did not ask to be born, and there is no way those parents are not going to resent it. And it seems unfair to have a baby when there are existing kids in their teens, at that age it disrupts their life too much and they get pushed to constantly babysit. These breeders did a fine job of fucking up their lives and their children's lives.

I see you and some other folks brought it up, but I didn't know that about pregnancy and its effect on autoimmune diseases. I'm shocked pignancy isn't touted as some kind of miracle remedy for things like thyroid disease if that's the case. Not as a cure, but just for the sake of temporary relief. I'd be lying if I said I didn't know of at least one woman who got pregnant just so she could have no periods for a while.

I think people feel obligated to keep very obviously unwanted loaves for a number of reasons. God's will is a common one I hear, even among the non-religious. It's a miracle, it was meant to be, it's their own flesh and blood and they can't "murder" it or "abandon" it even if it'll wreck their lives or the lives of their existing children, they've done the whole parenting thing before so they know how to handle it. I think it all just boils down to guilt. They're worried what people will think of them or they're worried they won't get into heaven if they abort or give up a kid they can't deal with or don't want. I mean I imagine this Moo is accustomed to keeping unwanted kids since I know most 15-year-old girls don't want to have babies. I'm guessing her parents probably made her keep her first one and she feels like she has to accept the burden of unwanted children again now, even at her age.

I wonder which of the grown kids has been named the legal guardian. Because you know Moo isn't gonna see this kid graduate. Maybe if she were healthier, but I don't see her having another 18 years in her.