"Pregnancy and Advanced Maternal Age-Susan's Story" Susan: "Hi my name is Susan, this is Elizabeth, she just turned one last Saturday, April 9th. We're on our way to the doctor's actually, but Elizabeth is my first child, I'm 41 years old. So within those first few months, I dealt with morning sickness, all those things that go along with being scared, being nervous in what they call Advanced Maternal Age. So, Elizabeth didn't want to come out at all, so ten days after her due date my doctor said that we should probably try to induce her. I thought that I would go through the au natural method, and ended up asking for that epidural, which is a local anesthetic. Throughout the 18 hour period, Elizabeth was not doing well with the drugs and the induction of labor, she had a lot of fetal distress, where her heart rate kept changing and dropping. So, it was a very scary thing, even though I knew it might happen and I was told about it, but when it actually happened it happened so fast, after being in pain and going through labor for so many hours, and being exhausted, and then having it happen like that so quickly. It took awhile, probably a week afterwards, I was going, "Is there something wrong with me, why can't I do this naturally?" After I realized that it doesn't really matter as long as both mom and baby are both happy and healthy. It's a huge lifestyle change, like nothing you could ever imagine. A lot of change in identity and who you are. Your relationship changes, you're exhausted, you're both stressed, it's a very trying time. So just try to build a big support network around yourself as best you can, and rely on those people to help out as you go along."