If you thought only older adoptive parents get grief from people with opinions not in favor of them parenting, check out what this woman in England is going through while seven months pregnant.

Patricia Rashbrook, a consultant psychiatrist with the East Sussex Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, will be sixty-three when she delivers her third child.

She won't be breaking any records, but joining a very exclusive club, nonetheless ... a couple of months ago, a California woman gave birth to her twelfth child at the age of sixty-two, and in January of last year a Romanian delivered her first at sixty-six.

Yes, Rashbrook is a rather extreme example of a trend towards older motherhood, but in Britain the number of women giving birth in their forties has tripled in the last twenty years.

Not an easy road, and one heck of a decision to make, coming along with a whole set of uncomfortable circumstances. IVF is not fun, and the commitment it takes to get through even one cycle is momentous. The odds are so long against successful pregnancy in a woman in her sixties that even starting the process must seem daunting beyond the imaginable, and anyone taking the path must have both a firm footing in optimism and a solid grasp of reality. I'm guessing there's some feeling of destiny and fate intermingled, as well.

The Italian doctor who facilitated the making of this baby believes age is not nearly the factor that health is, and Dr. Rashbrook met all the physical criteria for IVF.

Then, of course, there's the pregnancy itself, followed by the fun and games a newborn brings. Yikes! The more I think about it, the more admiration I have for these women. I may be in the minority, however ...

Strangely enough, it's pro-life groups who are most unhappy about the situation:

Josephine Quintavalle, from Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: “She is being selfish and sometimes greater love is saying no.”

Canon Michael Stagg, spokesman for the Norwich diocese, said: “The General Synod, considering these issues, said every child was a gift from God, but I believe that such treatments should only be administered to women who would normally be able to have children.”

I have some trouble figuring out just what point the anti-people are trying to make. Are they saying that this child should not be born because its parents are older? Or perhaps they're against the efforts and resources that went into the process. Do they worry about embarrassment for the kid, or the likelihood of being orphaned at an early age? (Embarrassment? Guaranteed. Orphaned? No guarantees...ever.)

Apparently, the parents have made all necessary arrangements covering all possible contingencies, so where's the problem?

All in all, I'm not big on making babies just for the sake of it ... we have enough of a shortage of room and resources on our planet without adding more mouths and lungs and grabby little fingers ... but if Patricia Rashbrook, or anyone else for that matter, adds to her family a child she'll love and cherish for as long as she can, good on her.

(Her first two kids are now in their twenties, by the way, making her an older mother when she had them. A first time mom at forty, then a second child at forty-four. This older mom probably set tongues wagging then. too ...)

Comments? Questions? Shy? E-mail me ... intladoptionblog@adoptionmail.com