22-07-2025
I'm an older mother who will be 65 when my baby turns 18 - I don't care what people think, I'm a better parent now than I would've been in my twenties
A mother who had a second child at 47 she's a better parent now than she ever would've been in her younger years and she doesn't care if people call her selfish.
Samantha Crammond first gave birth in her early 40s and thought that would be her only experience of changing nappies - until she discovered she was pregnant again on her 46th birthday.
Samantha, from Essex, said she 'wasn't expecting' to give birth again despite admitting that she and her partner Andy 'weren't being particularly careful'.
'I went to Tesco with Andy to get breakfast and I had a gut feeling so I got a pregnancy test [and] I did it in the toilet.
'I was standing over the bin ready to drop it in and it came up saying pregnant. I was shaking. I was happy, but at my age, you worry. It was hard to celebrate until tests had been done properly.'
Samantha, who works in admin for a finance company, tried not to get her hopes up after previously suffering a miscarriage. Her daughter, Elvie, was born on December 17 last year, weighing a healthy 8.8lbs, and she is also a mother to four-year-old, Zephyr.
Despite having initial nerves about the situation, she was never worried about being an older mother and did not want judgement from others to cloud her experience.
'Some mums worry about what other parents at the school gate think - I literally couldn't care less.
'Anyone that knows me probably says that I'm young at heart... I wasn't worried.
'For me personally, I travelled a lot, my life revolved around travel and I've partied hard. I'm completely happy to do this, whereas if I'd been younger it might have been different.
'I'm also much more patient. Mentally, it's much better having a baby when you're older. Physically, not so much.
'I don't mind the night feeds or anything like that, it's just the fact my body hurts. I get a bad back and my knees and my arms hurt from carrying her around all the time.'
Samantha - who will be 65 when Elvie turns 18 - said that she decided to go through with having another child because she did not want Zephyr to be on his own.
'We're going to be older parents, that's just a fact - but I didn't want him growing up without someone to share it with,' she said.
'Let [people] judge - I'm not here to live life on anyone else's timeline. I don't really think about [being an older mum], everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
'I do get some of the reasons, but I'm a better mother now than I ever would have been in my 20s.
'It's not about being the youngest mum at soft play - it's about being present, being calm and showing up every single day.'
Samantha says that she is more 'chilled' out in her forties than she was when she was younger and 'doesn't sweat the small stuff' anymore, but rather enjoys the experience instead.
'I know who I am now - and that makes me a better mum than I ever could've imagined,' she added.
However, her second pregnancy came with a long list of complications, including an underactive thyroid and gestational diabetes.
At one point, she was injecting insulin daily and struggling to breathe as fluid build-up pressed on her lungs, but said she remained upbeat and did not allow it to define her experience.
When Elvie was born at 37 weeks via a planned C-section, over a litre and a half of fluid came out during delivery.
Samantha said: 'The fluid was squashing my lungs. Over a litre and a half of fluid came out.
'I didn't enjoy being pregnant at all, I was considered high-risk. I just wanted to have it over and done with, as terrible as it sounds.'
She says that in her younger years, she would often be itching to get out of her house and travel the world, whereas now 'my happiness is at home with them'.
'Being older, I wouldn't have felt like that if I had had them earlier,' Samantha said.
