All Things Considered; Carla Eckels news segment

KMW 907 playback from dev player number 3 action number 5. These working women juggle motherhood and careers with the sense of humor and a good dose of family support. All of them were 35 before having their first child. These older parents, three African-American women in one Caucasian, two single moms and two married, are totally committed to their current lifestyle. Theresa Barfield has been self-employed for 20 years. Since 1990, she managed her own clothing boutique. For several years, Theresa and her husband desired to have children. She remembers being nervous but hopeful when she visited her position to see if she was pregnant. "I was 41 years old and I was not well, not feeling good. And I went to the doctor and he told me that I was just going through the change.

And they didn't even examine me. The nurse said, well, Mrs. "Barfield", I think you just going through the change. And you do have the symptoms of being pregnant but I know you're not pregnant at this time of your life". Theresa Barfield took a home pregnancy test which revealed she was indeed expecting. "My husband at the time, I couldn't wait to eat, call me. And then I said, guess what? And they said, well, I'm going to have a baby. He got a real quiet. He says, all you just do is because I every month I would do the same thing. You know, tell a thing, I'm going to have a baby. You're not pregnant, honey. But this time I really was". Another older mom, Rebecca Garvin, is a welder by trade. She experienced several medical problems including gestational diabetes, which is one of the health risks that increases with age. She had to take early pregnancy leave before her baby was born. "I was high risk because I had two previous strokes. And they were a little worried about that. But then being 38 and then having my first child, I was put into a category of high risk pregnancy automatically. And then I had high blood pressure".

Wichita OB-GYN physician Dr. Arthur "?D. Hart?" treats many older moms in his practice. "Hypertension is a real issue for women as they get older and they get pregnant. One of the things we watch for in each patient that is pregnant is high blood pressure. Diabetes becomes more of an issue as women get older. And as the body tissues that reproduce, just in the course of that reproduction of whether it be blood cells or cells that line the intestine, or heavy, those cells are not as efficient". Rebecca Garvin delivered a healthy baby girl. Her diabetes disappeared after her child was born. U.S. Air Force recruiter Vietta Sanders became pregnant at 36. She says older women that are expecting in the Air Force are immediately treated as high risk patients simply because of their age and extra tests are run. She worked throughout her pregnancy and during one of her prenatal checkups, she underwent fetal genetic screening.

"One of the tests was alpha protein and when this test was run on me at my 16-week point, it did come back with abnormal result. At that point in time, they ask you, do you want to continue on with the pregnancy? That's always an option that's available to you because they talk to you about some of the defects that can occur from coming up with abnormal result there. Of course, with tests, nothing is 100% positive. I chose to continue on. And one of the other options was the amniocentesis that's done. I also had that done. So I knew at that point, I knew that I had a healthy, bouncing baby boy". All women who will be 35 at delivery are offered amniocentesis, a test that detects down syndrome and some other conditions in the fetus. Some doctors advised women over 30 to have the test. Many women choose to have amniocentesis while others decline to

have the procedure. Madeline McCullough runs a busy photography business. She got married at 33 and had both of her children after 35. Jessie and Tanner were both born at home with the guidance of a midwife. I talked to her by phone between appointments. "After Tanner was born, actually 10 days after Tanner was born, he was turning blue around his mouth. And at that time, we took him to the doctor and they started screening for heart defects. And it was not until we discovered we. The doctors discovered the heart defect that they also started screening for down syndrome and realized he had down syndrome." The chromosomal defects increased with maternal age. Down syndrome is the most well-known. The risk of downs at 20 years of age is approximately 1 in 1,600. At 35, it is 1 in 365. Madeline says having a child with special needs has really opened her eyes up to the prejudice in this country against adults and children with disabilities. She's currently

working to keep her son mainstreamed in Wichita Public Schools. Although younger parents may have more energy and stamina than older parents, and face fewer age-related health risks, these mothers agree that being more mature has helped them in raising their children. Vietta Sanders: "I think I'm a lot more patient. I think as far as being able to a lot the time and the finances to support him, being older, it gave me time to get more settled. I'm willing to give that extra time to my child. Whereas if I was younger, I don't know if I would have wanted to slow down to actually do the things that I need to do, that I feel I need to do with him." Theresa Barfield: "It's time for people to tell me that they had the children when they were younger and now they can travel. But I did those things before I had a child, before I traveled and I did things. So that after I had Chris, I didn't mind staying home because I was happy to be home with it, my child." Rebecca Garvin:

"I've been tired ever since you were born, because it's just been a change in my lifestyle. When you're older and don't have any children and having a child at 38 or over, it completely changes your whole lifestyle. So therefore, you do extra things that you didn't have to do before and staying up a little longer, have to do a little bit more work because you have more things to do. And yeah, you get it a little tired. But with me, it's just been like, I can stay, I'm very upbeat." Madeline McCullough admits she wonders what life would have been like having children at a younger age. "There are some nights when at 10 o'clock I'm so exhausted, I think boy, that sounds like that would have been a good idea. But in reality, no, I'm more focused now, I'm more sure of who I am, I'm more sure of the morals and values and ideals that I'd like to share with my children. I think I'm a better mother than I would have been. Dr. D. Hart: "There are so many things that women know at 35 that they didn't know at 20. They may not do all the right things, but at least they know the right things by 35.

So for the woman who takes good care of herself, is nutritionally sound, has a situation where she is stable in her lifestyle, she may do much better in her pregnancy at 35 than she would have done at 20. And I can say that because I've seen that before. So if there are some positive benefits when you take a look at the whole picture." Health experts agree before having a child, it's important to weigh the health, emotional and social issues. Despite the balancing act of work and parenting later in life, these older moms say the rewards of having their children after 35 continually outweigh the challenges. For KMUW News, I'm Carla Eccles. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Let's switch gears. Let's go to Symphonie Fantastique.

Yeah. Big story behind this guy, you know, love sick. It's Valentine's Day coming up here. That's right. The other program is for this particular V-Day, you know. And this is a work that I think you're pretty familiar with. In fact, you've even recorded this one, right? Yeah, it's just about one and a half years ago. I recorded [this] piece with the China National Symphony Orchestra and the Phillips level. I think we did a pretty good, and it got a very good review from the recording magazines. The producers also got a very interesting opinion. I still couldn't quite convince by him. He thinks the Chinese orchestra will definitely produce a very different sound for the piece. Of course, obviously, he recorded this piece with different orchestra many, many times. He's like, and he gets this more transparent sound. And interpretation wise, he feels the Chinese people approach French

music as their own way, as they have a lighter feeling. I don't know if that's true or not, because I have been doing this work with many different orchestra. Most of them are not Chinese. I remember this is my second time doing this piece in which time it was in Rhode Island. I did it with Lansing. I did it with Mexican orchestras. I did it with some European orchestra for the piece. So there's been many, many times. But I recorded it only once [laughs]. It's a marvelous piece, and orchestra loves to play it in an audience life. Listen to it. Now, it's called Symphonie Fantastique, but it's five movements. And it certainly, to me, seems almost a little like Bartok, in a way that it is almost a concerto for the orchestra. I mean, you have oboists offstage. You have tympani solos in the third movement or fourth movement, the fourth movement, excuse me.

Both of them in the fourth. Oh, yeah, I guess so. I guess so, yeah, yeah. The third movement, towards the end of this, the thunder, right, right from the distance. So four tympanis to play together. This is kind of fun. And gosh, you know, just all the woodwinds, the dreams, it starts out. It's a hard piece to put together, do you think? Do you think a little bit of a challenge? Yeah, I think part of it to do with the difficulty is the tempo change. Particularly in the first movement, you want to create that kind of craziness, and a love sickness, you know, the tempo change, and compose a very clearly market on the score. You know, after two measures, one speed up, then slow down again, and the speed up. It's totally, you know, to reflect the kind of mind of state of a sick artist and a sick. He's a boy's love, you know, boy's jealous. But also in the five movements orchestration wise, they're so different. The two halves he used only in the second movement. As you point out, lots of woodwinds, solo

passages, some, like the ball, the second movement, like it's a very transparent sound. Maybe the producer was right. I love that kind of sound lighter and more transparent. One third movement is totally all your painting. Sometimes the color is very heavy. Sometimes very light. The fourth movement is totally different scenario. I mean, it's kind of scary. The last movement is so colorful. And every movement has its own characters, own pictures, or storytelling. It's so interesting to think about an artist himself, almost like an autobiography music, and also think about a story behind all those notes, and following the whole long, relatively long symphony of five movements. I think every time I listen to it, I still feel very enjoyable. I still feel it catch my attention right away. I want to listen to the strings, the woodwinds, the picture, the music presents. But just go

back to the time when Berlioz composed it and was premiered in Paris. I think the orchestration and the way he treats this symphonic orchestra is very innovative. And ever since, I think the way of orchestration started from Berlioz, I mean, the changed whole symphonic orchestra sound so very much. Now today we listen, say, this is a very familiar work that we have heard so many times, but at the time it's really kind of revolution. And it affected, you know, Liszt and everyone after there. Strauss. Strauss was a big fan of the Berlioz orchestration, and he had written no orchestration, and then Strauss put in some other, yeah, yeah, put out an example. And I think part of because of his orchestration, some of them are rather traditionalist, not so typical, but some of them are really presented as an example, difficulties for any orchestra.

I think one of the reasons, because of the orchestration, Berlioz never put his music on piano before he goes to orchestration, orchestration the whole whole score. He just goes directed to the score. So maybe part of that reason, so orchestration wise, sometimes it's quite difficult to get everything together. Yeah, interesting. That's right, he didn't play piano. But he's a lovely man and a great lover, great composer as well. So he has those kind of French passion towards love, towards his own life, and he just wants to speak out. He always wants to, you know, drive your sleeves. Hey, come in, you know, come in with me. Listen to my music, this is what I want to tell you. You got a feeling, you know, you are so involved with the way you listen to that music. Yeah, cool, cool. Let's see, let's switch gears again. Another great, another great, romantic this time from Germany, Johannes

Brahms. And certainly talking about innovations in music, the Brahms Requiem is so much different than if you think about the Verdi Requiem or Mozart Requiem. Usually a deathmash, you think of death knocking at the door and scary and ghouls and goblins and maybe like Symphonie Fantastique, which is swirling depends depends on the person I suppose. But Brahms is a Requiem to me is much more loving and not even with a Latin text, but they call it a German Requiem. Tell me some of your impressions of the Brahms Requiem. Well, first of all, John, I think you have a very, very sensitive view and sense about the music. I think it's absolutely right. Brahms Requiem is very different from Verdi, from Mozart, from many,

other composers. Actually, to me Brahms Requiem, he calls a darch, a German Requiem. He just want to distinguish his Requiem from the traditional Roman tradition Requiem, because I think his Requiem is not written for the dead, but for the living people. For people still alive to encourage them to cope with the suffering, the difficulties in life. So it has much, much warm feeling. You know, the music can express exactly just as you mentioned. I think that's the essential character or meaning for Brahms Requiem. He put it as German Requiem in purposely. He want to distinguish the Requiem from the others like the normal Requiem

mass. But once he also said the rudder, you know, be very glad to omit the word of German, replace it with human. I think that speaks a lot about what he says in his music. And this is probably the longest work by Brahms. As duration or performance, time, considerate. And he is such a serious composer. He never really write things and put pens down, then the music should come out right away. He always go back to his own library, his own archive, what he wrote before, and what kind of material he can, you know, reuse them all to rewrite them just like his first symphony. To such a long period of time to come out. And this one also, I think, he wrote his work on a quiet, long span of time. He actually liked the funeral march. It was from one of his

pianos or not. We go back to the pianos or not. I think it works for this. So you rewrite it for orchestra. Actually, pianos or not has never really published in the pianos solo form. But rather, it is a record. And he writes first three movements, perform them first, then he writes another three movements, and perform in German. The first time was in Vienna for three, we'll understand. Another three, perform in Bremen. A second biggest harbour city, I suppose, in Germany, very close to Hamburg, where he belongs to. And then after all performed, everywhere performed the piece, he added another movement into that, you know, that's Brahms. He just always think about his work and he never just give up and say, hey, that's like Rossini. It's so quick. It's just the right one in an hour or the

night before the premiere. He can write an overture, you know. Brahms are very, very different composers, so serious. And then talking about Bremen, I think the six movements was first performed, actually, make the 35 years old Brahms well known in Germany and in the whole world was because of the record, and then performed in the Cathedral of Bremen. Just a few months ago, I took the Chinese, China National Symphony Orhcestra on the European tour and performed in Bremen. Oh wow. And the entire orchestra took a picture in front of the Cathedral. That's the place. It's all things considered. I'm Carla Eckels. More and more women are delaying having children

until their mid-30s and beyond. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says that in 1998, over 4,000 women gave birth after the age of 35. Baby boomers are post-poning childbirth because of careers, finances, and personal lifestyle choices. For Wichita women decided to become mothers and have children later in life. These working women juggle motherhood and careers with a sense of humor and a good dose of family support. All of them were 35 before having their first child. These older parents, three African-American women, and one Caucasian, two single moms and two married, are totally committed to their current lifestyle. Teresa Barfield has been self-employed for 20 years. Since 1990, she's managed her own clothing boutique. For several years, Teresa and her husband desired to have children. She remembers being nervous but hopeful when she visited her physician to see if she was pregnant. I was 41 years old and I was not well, not feeling good. I went to

the doctor and he told me that I was just going through the change. They didn't even examine me. The nurse said, well, Mrs. Barfield, I think you're just going through the change. You do have the symptoms of being pregnant, but I know you're not pregnant at this time in your life. in your life. Teresa Barfield took a home pregnancy test which revealed she was indeed expecting. My husband went to town, and I couldn't went [inaudible], called me and then I said, guess what? And he said, well, I'm going to have a baby. He got real quiet. He says, ah you just do that because every month I would do the same thing, you know, tell them, I'm going to have a baby. And he says, you're not pregnant honey. But this time I really was [laughs]. Another older mom, Rebecca Garvin, is a welder by trade. She experienced several medical problems problems, including gestational diabetes, which is one of the health risks that increases with age. She had to take early pregnancy leave before her baby was born. I was high risk because I had had two previous strokes and they were a little worried about that. But then being 38 and then having my first child, I was put into a category of high risk pregnancy

automatically. And then I had high blood pressure. Wichita OB-GYN physician, Dr. Arthur ?Dehart?, treats many older moms in his practice. Hyper pretension is a real issue for women as they get older and they get pregnant. One of the things we watch for in each patient that is pregnant is high blood pressure. Diabetes becomes more of an issue as women get older. And as the body's tissues that reproduce, in the course of that reproduction of whether it be blood cells or cells that line the intestine, what have you, those cells are not as efficient. Rebecca Garvin delivered a healthy baby girl. Her diabetes disappeared after her child was born. U.S. Air Force recruiter, ?Vietta? Sanders, became pregnant at 36. She says older women that are expecting in the Air Force are immediately treated as high risk patients simply because of their age and extra tests are run. She worked throughout her pregnancy and during one

of her prenatal checkups, she underwent fetal genetic screening. One of the tests was alpha protein and when this test was run on me at my 16-week point, it did come back with abnormal result. At that point in time, they ask you, do you want to continue on with the pregnancy? That's always an option that's available to you because they talk to you about some of the defects that can occur from coming up with an abnormal result there. Of course, with tests, nothing is 100% positive. I chose to continue on and one of the other options was the amniocentesis that's done. I also had that done. So I knew at that point, I knew that I had a healthy, bouncing baby boy. All women who will be 35 at delivery are offered amniocentesis. A test that detects down syndrome and some other conditions in the fetus. Some doctors advise women over

30 to have the test. Many women choose to have amniocentesis, while others decline to have the procedure. Madeline McCullough runs a busy photography business. She got married at 33 and had both of her children after 35. Jessie and Tanner were both born at home with the guidance of a midwife. I talked to her by phone between appointments. After Tanner was born, actually 10 days after Tanner was born, he was turning blue around his mouth and at that time we took him to the doctor and they started screening for heart defects and it was not until we discovered we, the doctors discovered the heart defect that they also started screening for down syndrome and realized he had down syndrome. Chromosomal defects increase with maternal age. Down syndrome is the most well known. The risk of Downs at 20 years of age is approximately 1 in 1600. At 35, it is 1 in 365. Madeline says having a child with special needs has really opened her eyes up to the prejudice

in this country against adults and children with disabilities. She's currently working to keep her son mainstreamed in Wichita public schools. Although younger parents may have more energy and stamina than older parents and face fewer age related health risks, these mothers agree that being more mature has helped them in raising their children. Vietta Sanders: I think I'm a lot more patient. I think as far as being able to allot the time and the finances to support him, being older, it gave me time to get more settled. I'm willing to give that extra time to my child. Whereas if I was younger, I don't know if I would have wanted to slow down to actually do the things that I need to do, that I feel I need to do with him. Teresa Barfield: It's time wheres people tell me that they had their children when they were younger were younger and now they can travel. But I did those things before I had a child. Before, I traveled and I did things. So that after I had Chris, I didn't mind staying home because

I was happy to be home with my child. Rebecca Garvin: I've been tired ever since she was born, because it's just been a change in my lifestyle. When you're older and don't have any children and having a child at 38 or over, it completely changes your whole lifestyle. So therefore, you're doing extra things that you didn't have to do before and staying up a little longer, having to do a little bit more work because you have more things to do. And yeah, you get a little tired, but with me, it's just been, I can stay, I'm very upbeat. ?Mary? McCullough admits she wonders what life would have been like having children at a younger age. There are some nights when at 10 o'clock I'm so exhausted, I think boy, that sounds like that would have been a good idea. But in reality, no, I'm more focused now, I'm more sure of who I am, I'm more sure of the morals and values and ideals that I'd like to share with my children. I think I'm a better mother than I would have been. Dr. ?Deheart?:

There are so many things that women know at 35 that they didn't know at 20. They may not do all the right things, but at least they know the right things by 35. So for the woman who takes good care of herself, is nutritionally sound, has a situation where she is stable in her lifestyle. She may do much better in her pregnancy at 35 than she would have done at 20. And I can say that because I've seen that before. So if there are some positive benefits when you take a look at the whole picture. Health experts agree before having a child, it's important to weigh the health, emotional and social issues. Despite the balancing act of work and parenting later in life, these older moms say the rewards of having their children after 35 continually outweigh the challenges. For KMW News, I'm Carla Eccles.