Science- Barb Higgins was 57 when she had her baby, Jack. He's now an active toddler — and she's turning 60.
- The mom said she feels relaxed as a mom and free of some pressures of younger motherhood.
- This is part of Insider's "Super mom? Super judged" series. Read more here.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Barb Higgins. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Jack, my 2-year-old son, leaned in to blow out the candles on his birthday cake last month. I blew them out for him right as he went for it, but he didn't notice. He yelled out, in his sweet little voice, "I dood it!"
Everyone should have a baby in their 50s. The pressures of motherhood you feel in your 20s, 30s, and 40s just aren't there. You've stopped overthinking and don't give a crap about what other people think. I'm at retirement age and don't care whether I fit in.
Instead of focusing on others' opinions, I prioritize my health. The most important thing for me is to stay healthy for Jack. I breastfeed him, and he still nurses at night. I'm going to be 60 soon and proud that I can still feed my child with my body.
After losing a daughter in 2016, I started dreaming about having a baby
No one has approached me directly about my choice and criticized me. Everyone's been super supportive, and that's how it should be. I've had enough happen to me in my life that I will never stand in judgment of anyone. Everyone brings their own reality into everything they say, do, feel, and think.
It's been the biggest lesson I've learned from the death of Jack's big sister Molly. She died suddenly of a brain tumor at 13. We lost her in May 2016, a little under five years before Jack was born.
Molly arrived two years after my husband, Kenny, and I started our family in 2001 — when I was 38 and he was 46. Our daughter Gracie, now 21, came first.
The girls were inseparable. They did everything together, like dancing and theater.
But our world blew up. My life changed in a day.
We took Molly to the ER with a severe headache one morning, and she died in the hospital 16 hours later. They gave her medicine that knocked her out; at least she wasn't in pain. But the loss was unbearable.
Kenny, Gracie, and I pulled together. Our main concern was Gracie and supporting her through high school. She got up every day and lived her life as well as she could. But she's still not the kid she once was.
My husband said he'd love to have another child
About a month after Molly died, I had some intense dreams about having a baby. Sometimes I'd wake up and it was the first thing on my mind. If I were daydreaming in the yard, a voice would come into my head.
The dreams lasted a few months. At 53 years old, I thought to myself, "I just need to follow the process." I didn't tell anybody, not even Kenny.
I found an obstetrician who specialized in IVF for women over 50 and supported my quest. I've always practiced sports, especially running, and after a testing process, the doctors said I was healthy enough for it to happen successfully.
But I didn't feel ready so soon after our loss. I pleaded with the dreams to stop bothering me. "I've gone as far as I can in this journey," I said. They went away — for a while. Still, they came back in the summer of 2018. This time, I told Kenny about my prior tests.
He said, "I would love to have another child." I replied, "OK, let's see if we can do this."
So I started the IVF process again. I was on a lot of medication for insomnia, anxiety, and depression I'd experienced since Molly died. I was also taking anti-seizure and nerve-blocking medication for a condition called trigeminal neuralgia; it affects the nerves in the brain that control the facial muscles.
I had to get off all these drugs to undergo IVF and it was hard. But the pain from the trigeminal neuralgia was so bad that I knew there was no way I could go ahead with a pregnancy without the medication.
I told my story to a neurosurgeon, who said the only alternative to drugs was to operate on the damaged nerve. I said, "I'm 55 now. I want a baby and we're running out of time here." He agreed to do the surgery after an MRI.
We thought, "We're going to get it fixed and then we can continue along with making a baby." It was exciting.
But when I got home from the MRI, the doctor called. I looked at Kenny and said: "This can't be good. You never get a phone call with good news an hour after an MRI." I had three tumors in my brain.
We took a break from IVF but pressed ahead once I'd gotten the all-clear about my brain tumors
"My baby died of a brain tumor two years ago," I thought. "Now, in the process of trying for another baby, I find out that I have three brain tumors?" I looked up at the sky and thought: "What the hell? What more can one family take?"
Then I wondered if my dreams about the baby were for a different reason. They'd led me to go off my medication, which led to me having the MRI. "Maybe it's not about the baby," I thought. "Maybe it's about the process."
The doctors removed the largest tumor. The smaller ones were treated with radiation. None were cancerous, and there was no genetic link between my condition and Molly's. Next, I had the nerve surgery as planned.
We took a break from IVF, but after I got the all-clear, we pressed ahead. I was stunned to get pregnant with Jack on our second attempt in July 2020. We found out a few days after my 57th birthday.
I kept things quiet until I was 22 weeks pregnant.
I thought of funny ways to tell people. Some friends at the gym were complaining about having a "menopause belly." I pulled up my sweatshirt to reveal my bump. "Well, my menopause belly has a heartbeat!" I joked.
Jack was born on March 20, 2021 — the first day of spring — weighing 5 pounds and 13 ounces. The birth was as straightforward as the pregnancy. I call him my one-push wonder.
We all know we got lucky. I had a healthy body that ended up defying everything, and I'm doing all I can to keep it that way. I'm 59 and stay active for my family. I work out a lot, so I'm sore a lot. My passion is CrossFit. I'll do everything from running and biking to weightlifting and doing burpees.
People have asked if I wanted Jack as a replacement for Molly. I'd spent a lot of time wondering about that when we decided to follow through with the dream. But one child can never replace another. It's not a replacement, but it's a way to learn to continue to the future. Molly is still my daughter, a huge piece of my reality, while Jack is an addition.
I'll be 75 when Jack graduates from high school, and Kenny will be 83. We won't be young, but that's all right. A lot of our relatives have lived for a very long time. My grandfather, for example, lived beyond 90.
Life with Jack can sometimes be exhausting, overwhelming, and all-consuming. But it's the best life you could ever imagine.
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