Meet Bill

Meet Bill

First and foremost, hello and welcome to my blog! Thank you for visiting and checking it out! As the name of the blog suggests, I am a man in his mid-40’s, just entering the world of fatherhood now. It has been a very long journey to this point. I have watched friends have kids many years ago, kids who are just now starting to have kids of their own. And here I am, just starting out. But we live in an era when people are starting their family building later in life. And while it has its challenges, it absolutely can be done! And that is the goal of this blog. To talk about my journey. I plan on talking some about the journey to this point, and the experience going forward. The good, the bad, they ugly (“blowout diapers” anyone?) All of it. What this blog will feature:

• Adventures of Being an Older New Father
• Family
• Infertility and IVF
• The Adoption Process
• Support ("Find Your People")
• Balancing Family and Career

But first, who am I you may be asking if you’re just stumbling into this blog. My name is Bill. I have been happily married to my best friend for 18 years (together for 25 years). I live comfortably in a sleepy suburb 15 miles south of Boston, and about 15 miles from where I grew up. Aside from being away at college in Vermont, I have lived on the South Shore my entire life.

I am a transportation planner, working in a regional planning agency that serves the communities I grew up in. Communities that made me who I am. Communities that I call home. My career has been very fulfilling, and it has meant a lot to me to be able to serve these communities. I have been in this career for 22 years.

I come from a small immediate family, but relatively large extended family. My immediate family is just my parents, and my younger (2 years younger) brother. But I was blessed to have both my maternal grandparents in my life well into my 30’s. My great grandmother lived until I was in my teens. My mother has three brothers and one sister, and my dad has two brothers (one of whom is a twin) and a sister. And there are a bunch of cousins. Family has always been a strong foundation upon which my life has been built. So many childhood memories are tied in with family. My grandmother and the “Hyde Park Ladies”. Sitting on stoops. All wanting to chat me and my brother up. Summers in New Hampshire with my cousins. Amusement Park adventures with my cousins. Cape Cod outings. You name it. I can’t picture a time of my childhood, particularly summers, where I’m not spending them with family. And when it was just us in the immediate family? Sledding with my brother in the winter. My dad taking us on day trips. Mom taking us to the beach. My brother and I battling it out on Intellivision (you youngens will have to google that one).

I always wanted a family of my own. And when I met my wife Stephanie, I knew she was similar in her family desires. But life had dealt me a challenging hand. I was born with a genetic disorder called Kallmann Syndrome. And as “stuff” you can be born with, look, it’s not that bad. I have a reduced sense of smell, and at some point, will likely become anosmic. I have lower bone density than most “normal” men. I’m a little under height, and my appendages are slightly short. Buying dress shirts and pants can be a bitch with the short arms and legs.

Everything is relative. I’m not going to say, “this is the worst thing about KS”. But for me it was the effect it has on fertility. It wasn’t even two months after our wedding where a specialist at a Boston in hospital said those words. “Having a family naturally is going to be very difficult for you. You need to prepare yourself that this may not be an option in your life plan.”

Yo. Yeah. Try having that conversation with your new bride. Awesome. Cool times.

But my wife is a very hopeful and faithful person. And she not only kept hope for us, she would not allow me to lose faith in it either. It just became one of those things. “We’re working on it”. But the years passed by, and soon we were in our 30’s, and it hadn’t happened. And while we were still never losing hope, we had also built a childless life. I worked on developing myself in my career. Found ways to take pride in that. When my brother had a baby, I became the best damn uncle I could be. My wife and I began to travel more. We bought into Disney Vacation Club and went off and had a blast in our “happy place” a couple of times a year.

I think a lot of people go to that cliché that “there was an emptiness” without children. And while I can’t speak for my wife, at least for me there really wasn’t. I loved the life we had built. Our continuing path on family building wasn’t about filling an emptiness, but rather just really wanting it. We had all this love for each other. Beyond that, we were recipients of all this love from out families. We just wanted to build on that love. Share it with someone. See them have the same experiences we did, and blossom into their own beautiful person.

Years of IVF were a painful (physically and emptionally0 process, but we kept at it. In 2018, I was face with anew challenge. Breaking my back in two different places. It was an extremely painful and difficult rehab, and it slowed down our path to parenthood. While I am much better today, I am still left with chronic pain and somewhat limited mobility, at least compared to what I had prior to the accident.

And then finally, a few years ago, we talked and asked ourselves. “How about adoption?”. And that was a journey in itself, and at times it was hard to stay positive. Until that day in September 2021 when the phone rang. An expecting mother had chosen us. She wanted to place her baby with us.

And that was the day our real lives began.

So, who am I? I am a happily married, brand new father to a newborn in his 40’s juggling fatherhood, career, and marriage. To say becoming a father has changed my life is not only obvious but a gross understatement. It’s been challenging yet amazing. I look into my son’s eyes, and I see a whole world ahead of him. Ahead of us. And it’s incredible.