How I Made My 3rd Pregnancy the Best One Yet

The first time I was pregnant, I was 29. Fast-forward 11 years, and my third baby was on the way.

Because I was 40, my pregnancy was what some (out-of-touch) doctors would call “geriatric.” It doesn’t exactly conjure up an image of a strong, glowing mom-to-be, right? Even worse was the medical term for a person over 35 having a second or third (or fourth) pregnancy: “elderly multigravida.” That one just makes me think of an ancient, gnarly tree. The grandmother in the forest. That’s me.

Luckily, neither of these terms are used often today. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) talks about the risks of pregnancy over the age of 35 (“advanced maternal age”), but offensive terms like “geriatric pregnancy” are not as common.