'I don't care what people think, I'm a better mum giving birth at my age'

A mum who had a baby at 47 says 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 one experience of nappy-changing days.

But when she discovered she was pregnant in a Tesco toilet on her 46th birthday, she was stunned. “I really wasn’t expecting it, even though we weren’t being particularly careful,” said Samantha, from Essex. “I went to Tesco with my partner Andy to get breakfast, and I had a gut feeling, so I got a pregnancy test. I did it in the toilet at Tesco.

“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.”

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Samantha, who works in admin for a finance company, tried not to get her hopes up after previously suffering a miscarriage. But despite the initial nerves, she was never worried about being an older mum – and wasn’t interested in letting other people’s judgement cloud her experience.

Her daughter Elvie was born on December 17, 2024, weighing a healthy 8.8lbs. The 47-year-old said: “Some mums worry about what other parents at the school gate think – I literally couldn’t care less. Anyone who 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 to have 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 that my body hurts.

“I get a bad back and my knees and my arms hurt from carrying her around all the time.”

Samantha, who is also mum to four-year-old Zephyr, knows some people make assumptions when they see older mums – but she’s too content to care. And while her second pregnancy came with a long list of complications, including an underactive thyroid and gestational diabetes, she’s not letting any of it define her experience.

At one point, she was injecting insulin daily and struggling to breathe as fluid built pressed on her lungs. 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.”

Samatha has thought about the future, especially when it comes to growing older alongside her kids. She added: “I do think about it, but that was why we decided to have another one – otherwise Zeph would 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. Let them 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.

“I’m more chilled, I don’t sweat the small stuff, I just enjoy them. I know who I am now – and that makes me a better mum than I ever could’ve imagined. It’s really weird. Before, the only thing I ever wanted to do was be away from home.

“Whereas now, my happiness is at home with them. And being older, I wouldn’t have felt like that if I had had them earlier. I just felt like I still had things to do. Now, I can give it my everything.”