Shut your pie-hole

Dear Perky Young Thing sitting beside me at the hairdresser,

I understand (from the sounds of things) that you're probably blissfully unaware that not every single person can sneeze and get pregnant. And stay pregnant. And birth a live baby. I understand that you're pleased that you were able to have one child and, now, get pregnant with a second one while you're still young. I understand that in a perfect world this makes a lot of sense. You have energy, health and youth on your side.

I get that. I do. And the part of me that didn't want to jam a curling iron in your great gaping pie-hole is happy for you - happy that you get to be young and pregnant and blissfully unaware.

But the crusty, broken-down, 40-year old whose uterus has left a bloody path of destruction in its wake would like to respectfully tell you to keep your opinions about "old mothers" to yourself. She might patiently bite her bottom lip whilst you wax poetic about the joys of being a young mother, but she will come this close to beating you about the head with a full conditioner bottle when you effortlessly slide into an ugly conversation about how terrible it is that Kelly Preston is pregnant at 47.

Honestly, Perky Young Thing, you were dangerously close to getting a new one ripped for you. You are clearly unaware of how horribly insensitive your comments were, and how inappropriate it is to sit there on your pregnant pedestal judging older mothers with such open scorn and smugness oozing from your lips when you have no idea who is in earshot - or what struggles they might have endured to bring a child home. Or not, as the case may be.

My God, Perky Young Thing, what if I'd been pregnant??

You were saved by the hairdryer which finally drowned out your incessant prosthelytizing (which, in case you hadn't noticed, even your own hairdresser wasn't buying into. I should have tipped her too.).

One of the reasons we decided to stop trying was because we are now both in our 40s. After all we've been through we knew, at a certain point, that we simply didn't have the energy to continue and risk facing any additional hardships or loss.

We have become old before our time, Perky Young Thing. But it was OUR choice to make this incredibly difficult and personal decision based on what we've been through, and I will defend to my death every "old mother's" right to decide when she is finished adding to her family.

Now quit your yapping, keep your eyes on your own uterus - and, by the way, stop getting your hair dyed while you're pregnant.

Regards,
The barren, ferocious hag to your right