Waiting to become parents

Written by Heather Spangler

Photos by John Richard

Cheryl Jacobsen remembers with chagrin the term used to describe her first pregnancy at age 36 — “Elderly prima gravida.”

“It’s an awful term,” she said with a laugh.

She remembers getting more tests, more ultrasounds and more “cautious treatment” leading up to delivery. But after her daughter, Sophia, was born in 1998 and Sophia’s sister, Julia, followed five years later, everything was “just normal.”

“We’re not the weird ones. I think I’m the average age at Sophie’s school,” Jacobsen said.

Her husband, Dave Ozolins, who was 44 when he became a dad, agrees.

“I’m just a lucky guy, not an older parent, not anything, just a lucky guy,” he said.

In fact, Jacobsen and Ozolins say they think young parents are a more uncommon sight in Iowa City.

“When I see really young parents at school, I think ‘Oh my God!’” Jacobsen said.

“You wonder how they’re going to pull it off and make it happen,” Ozolins said.

Statistics seem to support their observations. The Center for Disease Control reported in April that the pregnancy rate for U.S. women under the age of 25 dropped between 1990 and 2004. The 2004 pregnancy rate for teen mothers was the lowest ever reported since 1976.

The CDC also reported that the birthrate for women in their 30s and 40s has reached a high point since the 1960s and 70s. Women age 25 to 29 have the highest pregnancy rate.

For Jacobsen and Ozolins, the decision to have children in their 30s and 40s was influenced by several factors. For one thing, they didn’t meet and marry until 1995.

Ozolins, now a 53-year-old safety engineer, said he wasn’t even considering becoming a parent in his teens and 20s.

“I wasn’t even in that realm,” he said. “I was drafted in Vietnam. There, staying alive was the most important thing. After that, I guess I basically accepted the proposition that I wasn’t going to get married and I wasn’t going to have children.”

Jacobsen said the expectations for women of her generation were different than those for earlier generations.

“I felt no expectations or push into being married and having kids,” she said. “You were expected to have your career first.”

Jacobsen said waiting to have her children until after her calligraphy and freelance art business was established helped her feel grounded. “I felt like I wanted to get my feet on the ground and support myself first,” she said.

Jerome Yankowitz, director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship Program and professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa, said Jacobsen and Ozolins’ reasons for waiting to become parents are common in patients he sees.

“It’s taking a while for people to find spouses and I think there are career choices,” Yankowitz said.

He also said that when potential parents begin trying to conceive in their 30s and 40s, medical realities can slow down the process and delay parenthood even longer.

“When you start to get to 35 and especially 40, the chance of being able to conceive normally without assistance really plunges,” he said. “For example, by the time you’re 40, there’s less than a one in five chance of being able to conceive without assistance.”

Yankowitz said he doesn’t use terms like “elderly prima gravida” with his patients, but the wording comes from insurance and billing forms. He’s especially sensitive to issues facing older parents because he and his wife, Diana, were in their early 40s when their 8-year-old daughter, Hana, was born.

He said despite increased medical risks in a later pregnancy, like genetic abnormalities and low birth weight, he and Diana have seen definite upsides to delaying parenthood.

“I think we’ve seen some of the ‘grandma and grandpa’ comments from people who don’t know we’re our daughter’s parents, but it’s also been a lot of fun,” he said. “I think because we’re a little more savvy and experienced in life, we probably have done stuff or know how to get answers to our questions that a younger parent may not know. Sometimes we feel like the old advisors for people around us even though we only have our one daughter.”

Jacobsen and Ozolins say they love parenthood and are happy with the timeline their lives have followed.

“I think it’s the most valuable thing I’ve ever done in my life, and it’s really sort of completed me as a person in a way I never could have done myself,” Jacobsen said. “I really think kids are the most amazing thing and the most important thing in my life. I’ve learned so much and I think it’s made me a better person.”

Ozolins said he hopes his girls follow a similar path.

“They’re not dating until they’re 33 or I’m dead, so I may never be a grandparent,” he joked, “but I’d rather have them wait to have children later in life, too, and become accomplished in their own right.”