Saying Yes to Motherhood at 49

Words by Jess Barzell

I didn't try to have a child until I was 40—not because I didn't want one, but because I was busy.  My twenties were about learning to take care of myself—anxiety had been rattling me for years. My thirties were about reclaiming my desires, getting an MA in Dance and moving to NYC to perform dance and comedy. My forties were about saying no to emotionally unavailable comedians and musicians and becoming the artist I kept wanting to date. But, like emotionally evolved.  When I finally met my now-husband, I asked him on our first date if he wanted kids soon. Because that's what you do when you're 42. You ask. 

Fertility doctors explained that at 42, my eggs were also 42. Men make sperm continuously, month after month, their whole lives. Women make eggs once: at birth. My eggs, they explained, were tired. I found this both relatable and oddly kind. Far kinder than another doctor's response to a failed IVF cycle: "I'm sorry, you're just old."

On our third round of IVF, we got a viable embryo. The nurses said my uterine lining was textbook perfect, which gave me a confidence I clung to. We were also, simultaneously, getting married, moving to Boston, and starting new jobs. Just a totally chill season of life.

One morning, a week or so after implantation, I saw blood in my underwear in the shape of a heart. I cried to my husband, convinced I'd miscarried. When the clinic opened, the nurse told us not to worry. Bleeding can be normal. She was right. We were pregnant.

But it was a strange, untethered time. We hadn't found our people. It was winter and everyone in Boston was in hibernation. In New York, I used to run into three people I knew just walking to get my coffee. I didn't feel pregnant. I was also offered my first role in a play and had to turn it down, a decision that sat heavy. By our first ultrasound at 12 weeks, I was exhausted—not from pregnancy symptoms, but from worry.

A doctor we'd never met told us he couldn't find the embryo. 

My heart sank. And then, I'm almost ashamed to admit this, I felt a strange flicker of relief because it finally matched what my body had been telling me. Later, I was just devastated.

The miscarriage triggered a regret spiral I wasn't prepared for. I regretted leaving New York for a city that didn't feel like home, and then felt ashamed of the regret. Boston may still not be my favorite city, but I was experiencing a form of postpartum depression. The hormone crash after 12 weeks of shots every other day is real. I went on an SSRI. Then someone handed me the book Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver, and one line stopped me cold: “Divine Love has already chosen the highest outcome and I will be shown the way.” It was the first thing in months that didn't ask anything of me.

The paradox I slowly learned to hold: I deeply wanted a child, and I did not need one to be whole. The more fiercely you want something, the more that wanting can calcify into fear. Offering the desire up and trusting that a higher power wanted what I wanted loosened the grip. The belief that I would not crumble either way took years to build.

We moved to Maine. During the pandemic,  I started collecting washed up plastic fisherman’s gear on the shores of our neighborhood beach. It felt like helping in small ways. It was also fun to walk to the beach, collecting little treasures, and make weird sculptures out of it. I was content and relieved I had the time to make things without distractions. 

Then I was asked to teach printmaking to kids in their front yards. One gig turned into two and then many more. I’d have the kids collect treasures and make cyanotypes or roll paint on a jelly plate and make detailed prints. I felt the joy of being with children again. While my art prints were getting attention in local magazines and street sales, I was changing again in an unexpected way.

The dancer and actor who needed to book the agency in my thirties was relaxing into the joy of creating with children. Instead of wanting to get to the next level and sell my prints in galleries, I realized I was an artist regardless of  external validation. After that summer, I allowed myself to want to become a mom again and I saw it as the most creative endeavor that I would attempt. 

I was 48. 

Opening the conversation with my husband to try again was tricky.  Sharing it with friends and family with the thought, what if it doesn’t work out and I just told everyone, was scary. Asking our IVF doctor if I could carry a baby was daunting. Everyone was on board with one limitation, the clinic had an age limit of 50. The clock was ticking. 

We began searching for egg donors on a daily basis. Our agreed upon favorite got picked up the week of Thanksgiving and then we didn’t agree on anyone for months and months.

Then one morning, my husband asked, Would Heather donate her eggs?

Heather is someone close to us. Her full story is hers’ to tell. What I can say is that I called her immediately, we pitched the idea, and she said yes before we'd even finished explaining the process. Yes to flights to Denver. Yes to shots in her belly, administered by her own hand in hotel bathrooms. Yes to canceled plans and rearranged holidays. Yes to a body that wasn't hers to plan around anymore, for months. Yes, even, to the possibility that none of it would work.

Out of every embryo we tested, we had one left.

“All it takes is one,” our doctor said.

All it takes is one. We got pregnant six months later. 

This pregnancy felt different from the very beginning. There were still fears early on, when I wasn't showing. But underneath the fear was something new: a deep, steady trust that it was going to be okay, no matter what. On the drive to our first ultrasound, a number I didn't recognize flashed across my phone screen: 111-111-1111. Eleven is my spiritual number. I took it as a sign I was held. The new moon fell on my sun sign for almost every single clinic visit. I trusted it. I texted my mom, my most spiritually fluent trustee, which, if you know, you know.

At 32 weeks, before a planned trip to New York, I was hospitalized for low amniotic fluid. And I surprised myself completely by accepting it. The constant monitoring became a comfort; his heartbeat on the screen, nurses nearby, doctors at the ready. That night I dreamed of his birth, safe and smooth. It was the first time I'd allowed myself to visualize it.

One night around three a.m., sitting on my yoga mat on the hospital floor, I started to sing. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. My mother sang that to me when I was small. I stopped. 

I changed the lyric on the spot: "My only sunshine" felt like too much pressure to put on any human being, especially one not yet born. You are my sunshine, my baby sunshine. 

And then the name arrived, fully formed: Sonny. My husband loved it immediately.

We had Sonny on June 4th by C-section. I'd hoped for a vaginal birth, but after the first steps to dilate my cervix, I asked for a different path. The nurse and doctor both lit up at my request — their faces said thank you in a way that surprised me and then didn't. Because of the timing of that choice, our neighbor and friend happened to be on call the next day. She delivered him.

One year later, I understand that Sonny was the product of self-discovery, science, prayer, trust—and Heather’s extraordinary yes. Sonny has taught me a strength I didn't know I had and a love I can't fully describe.

Sonny hired me to be his mom. I think I'm doing a pretty amazing job. At 50, this is the best chapter of my life.

Jess Barzell is an actor, dancer, and coach living on the coast of Maine. She has taught pilates, barre and strength for over 20 years, from university dance departments to NYC studios. Today she runs a Pilates teacher certification in Portland and a 12-week online strength program for postpartum and menopausal women, designed to restore the core. Her prints and sculptures, made from sea treasures collected on her neighborhood beach, have been featured in Maine Magazine. She lives in Cape Elizabeth with her husband and her son, Sonny—her best gig yet. You can watch her TEDx talk on imperfection here and follow her on Instagram @jessbarzell.