We Had Triplets When My Husband and I Were in Our 40s

“Are you their grandmother?”

When I was growing up, I hated this question. My mother was 40 when she adopted me and my twin sister. She kept her grey hair short so it was an honest, if not cringeworthy, mistake.

You might think I’d start my family earlier to avoid a similar situation, but I had big dreams. I moved from Texas to New York City to attend theater school. During that time, I was cast in a terrible Shakespeare play where I met David, a handsome British tennis coach, and we fell in love. We headed to Hollywood, where my screenwriting and novel career took off. Nine years later, David and I were married, and I got pregnant right away. At 33, it seemed like the perfect age to start our family.

Unfortunately, I had a miscarriage. Then, after a year with no baby luck, we saw a fertility doctor. This resulted in another year of tests that culminated in my unexplained infertility diagnosis.

At 36, I began IVF treatment. We had a few setbacks with another loss and COVID. We decided to undergo one more round of IVF, and then we’d reevaluate our next steps. To our surprise, our five-year fertility journey and that last embryo resulted in the surprise of a lifetime: Not one. Not two. But three babies. Identical triplets.

I was 41 when they were born. David was 49. I’d been worried about being too old to be a mom to one child. Now I needed the energy for three.

While we love our girls more than anything, there are benefits and drawbacks to being older parents that are often overlooked.

We’re glad we lived our young-adult lives well

My husband and I spent our 20s and 30s going to the best restaurants and bars, traveling, and enjoying a carefree life with plenty of disposable income. I’m grateful for that time.

These days, things are quite different. We work a lot to afford our larger family, and weekends consist of trips to Costco, playgrounds, and birthday parties. We love it because we’re not longing for something else and are able to be fully present, enjoying our fun and not-so-fun parenting adventures.

Time has given us the gift of patience

Being older has allowed us to develop patience that we may not have had at the beginning of our relationship. By the time the triplets arrived, we’d endured career and mental health challenges and buried at least one parent.

Having triplet preemies who needed us 24/7 or navigating level-ten meltdowns because a banana wasn’t peeled correctly felt not easy, but manageable.

Most days, we remind ourselves to laugh and remember the chaos won’t last forever.

The kids are testing our stamina

Before kids, I wrote TV scripts during the day and books at night, which convinced me I’d be a pro at managing sleepless nights. It turns out I didn’t factor in all my pre-baby naps and the 10 hours of sleep I was typically getting.

My husband was equally delusional. “As long as I get 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night, I’ll be fine,” he once said to me. Yes, I still make fun of him for that, but we’ve both struggled with exhaustion that hasn’t let up even four years later (our daughters are very early risers!)

While we may not have the energy of 20- or 30-somethings (or the sleep score to match), we’ve found that our enthusiasm for being parents more than makes up for it.

Our village doesn’t have many residents

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Unfortunately, both of our parents are gone, and the family we do have works full-time or lives across the country. We’ve had to pay to build our own village of incredible nannies and sitters. We would love to have a larger support system, but we’ve never regretted our decision to wait until we had our children.

There is no perfect timeline for becoming a parent. At 41, I still felt unprepared when the girls were born. The only way to really know if you’re ready is to dive in and expect the unexpected, even if that turns out to be identical triplets.