Hello, let's get Hustling!
/Welcome to my first blog for the 40 Year Hustle. I have big hopes for this site, right now it is a pretty simple outline of some things I did on my journey to fall pregnant despite the odds of my age and health at the time.
In time, I want to create a community of women, for women, who want to share stories and experiences of trying and falling pregnant as an ‘older mum’. To have podcasts and articles with fertility experts and health practitioner’s, providing new and positive advice, I want to reduce the stigma around being an ‘older mum’ and for women in their late 30’s and 40’s to be comfortable with their age and their role as mum. But mostly I want you to see this site as your oasis amongst the hustle and harsh critics.
I think you may be asking - why the name 40 year hustle?
Well when you reach the age 40 there is a belief that we are met with ‘mid –life’. Maybe you even think this is the year you have finally ‘made it’ and buy a sports car? I mean hey for many they have the relationship, house and kids, you smashed it at life, well done and high fives all round.
But for it me the age came around so bloody fast I couldn’t fathom how I got there. Did I miss something? Did I miscalculate some birthdays along the way? And then perhaps that awful feeling, that you need to rush it all - to get to that ‘imaginary’ finish line to catch up. Not because you are ready or things felt right but purely because you chose a different life path…but that doesn’t mean you don’t want the dream or at least part of it.
My whole thirty-ninth year, I felt like someone had punched me in the windpipe. I felt robbed and started to look at my previous life choices and wonder where did I go wrong? How did I get to this age and not end up with what I wanted most? I became crippled with anxiety and frozen with the fear of choice! I could not make any decisions big or small (even if I had been held at gunshot for an answer). I was stuck. I thought if I got it so wrong in the past, could I trust myself to make choices anymore?
After a major life hustle I got there in the end (‘there’ - being whatever it is you want in your dreams of choice) and I realised that this thinking around being 40 was so outdated!
Yes age is just a number but when it comes to having a baby no one will let you believe that. I want to challenge your thinking on that. There is so much evidence forming and natural therapies that can be adopted to help you improve your fertility and overcome major health conditions to have a safer pregnancy (not just at 40 - but any age). The problem is these people (me) don’t have a voice yet. Traditional media and doctors would much rather scare you into having a baby at 25 with that dropkick you had been dating for four weeks, than dare you to have a child in your 30’s and 40’s.
Maybe right now you are single and in your 30’s and already telling people you think you’re chance to have children has gone…you have been made to believe that your chances at falling pregnant diminish on your 35th birthday?
Or you are in your 40’s and panicking as you have been told you are already too late – you missed that boat!
Or maybe you are a forward planner and you know that you have some health issues and when it does ‘come to that time’ that you will struggle.
Or maybe you have had a miscarriage and don’t know how you can keep forging ahead?
Whatever your current path is, whether you are already in the ‘hustle journey’ with your husband, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend or on your own – it doesn’t matter how you are hustling, this is your story and yours to tell.
The 40 Year Hustle is my story, my journey of how I got here and the knowledge I gained on the way…and I also want it to be your story. Everyone started somewhere on this journey, you may be in the beginning, the middle or the end right now. Luckily, I like to tell and share stories, so you can draw a little inspiration from this website, whether it is information, make new friends, gain hope or even if it is just a distraction from where you are currently at….whatever your goal is, whatever you do from here, my dream is that you use this site to move forward, knowing you gave your own hustle everything you could.
And to prove my point - check out this funny video below - this is what the ‘40 year hustle’ is all about!