Above Forty Motherhood

If you haven’t had access to TV, radio, Internet, magazines, or newspapers over the last year, then you might not know that pop diva Mariah Carey gave birth to twins with hubby Nick Cannon – a boy Moroccan and girl Monroe -- at age 41 last April. (She turns 42 on March 27!) Despite facing fertility struggles, Carey denies she underwent in vitro fertilization and instead says she relied on acupuncture for help. These days, the couple is over the moon. “Parenthood is absolutely the most life changing experience we could ever have imagined,” the two posted on their web site last year.

After two failed marriages – one to pro baseball player David Justice and the other to musician David Justice – actress Halle Berry found love again, this time in late 2005 with model Gabriel Aubry and gave birth to the couple’s child, daughter Nahla, in March 2008, when Berry was 41. Sadly, the couple broke up two years later and has been became embroiled in a bitter custody dispute practically ever since. Despite claiming years ago she would never marry again, Berry announced her engagement to French actor Olivier Martinez just a few weeks ago. So will there be more babies on the horizon for Halle? After all, she’s only 45!

Salma Hayek waited until she was 40 to make two big life decisions pertaining to marriage and motherhood. In March 2007, the Mexican-born actress announced she was pregnant and engaged to French billionaire, Francois-Henri Pinault. That September, daughter Valentina Paloma was born. The new parents split 10 months later – but then reconciled and married on Valentine’s Day 2009.

After going through multiple rounds of in vitro fertilization, Helen Hunt gave birth to her first child, daughter Makena Lei, in May 2004, a month before the “Mad About You” actress turned 41. “Motherhood is totally thrilling and I love every minute of it,” Hunt, who’s been in a relationship with TV producer Matthew Carnahan for more than a decade, told The Daily Mail in 2008. “I think it’s partly having had a challenging time getting pregnant. Someone who went through in vitro said to me, ‘When other mothers run out of patience, you’ll have another two hours in your tank because you’re so grateful she’s here.’ And it’s true.”

Mariska Hargitay was 41 when she gave birth to her son August in June 2006. The “Law & Order: SVU” actress had to undergo an emergency c-section after she developed gestational diabetes in her third trimester after gaining 54 pounds. "I was overwhelmed by my lack of energy,” she told Self magazine in 2007. “All I could do to survive was to eat.” For their second and third children, Hargitay and her husband, Peter Hermann, adopted. In April 2001, they welcomed daughter Amaya and just six months later, a son, Andrew Nicolas.

When Marcia Cross met stockbroker Tom Mahoney in 2006, the race was on for the 44-year-old actress to start a family. Six months later, they married and immediately began in vitro fertilization. In February 2007, the “Desperate Housewives” actress gave birth to fraternal twin girls Eden and Savannah. Cross, who considered a surrogate, has been very open about the real struggle women in the 40s face when trying to get pregnant. “One's own eggs only last so long, and sometimes at 43 or 44 you can have your own baby, but statistically it's very difficult and expensive,” she has said. “You don't want to wait that long."

Giving birth for the first time at 48 nearly took Nancy Grace’s life. The HLN host delivered twins John David and Lucy Elizabeth in November 2007, two months before they were due, after she developed blood clots in her lungs that made it difficult to breathe. "I had to take a wheelchair back and forth to the studio," Grace, now 52, said at the time. "My legs were horribly swollen. I could not breathe. I didn't realize my body was filling up with fluid and I was developing blood clots to the lungs." After spending a few weeks in the hospital because they were so premature, the twins are now happy and healthy – and were often seen cheering on their mom when she competed on “Dancing With the Stars” last year.

“Flashdance” star Jennifer Beals may have gotten married to her second husband, Canadian entrepreneur Ken Dixon, when she was 34, but the actress waited until she was past the big 4-0 milestone to have her first child. Beals was 41 when she gave birth to a daughter in October 2005. She got some practice in beforehand, however, as stepmom to Dixon's two kids from a previous marriage. 

After three failed marriages, Geena Davis settled down with Iranian-American plastic surgeon Reza Jarrahy in 2001 and the two immediately started their family. The next year, then-46-year-old Davis gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter named Alizeh. Two years later, the “Stuart Little” actress did it again, this time with twins Kian and Kaiis when she was 48.

After numerous miscarriages, Emma Thompson finally made her baby dream a reality when, after undergoing in vitro fertilization, she conceived daughter Gaia, who was born in December 1999 when the British actress was 40. But giving the little girl a brother or sister proved impossible when another round of IVF failed. "I would have desperately liked to have had more children and it's been a great agony for me," Thompson has said. Not having more kids was so “depressing” to her partner Greg Wise, he sought therapy. “It's a brute, IVF,” he has said. “It depends on the age of the woman. Your eggs get old. I'm completely in love with the idea of fatherhood, but as for more children we'll have to see what happens. We're just very lucky to have Gaia."

After six years of dating, Al Pacino and Beverly D’Angelo became parents together in 2001 – even though he was 60 at the time. Thanks to in vitro fertilization, the “National Lampoon” actress, then 49, delivered twins Olivia and Anton that January. Within two years, the couple split and a bitter battle for custody began when D’Angelo wanted to raise the kids in Los Angeles, while Pacino is New York-based. The two settled a year later, although they wouldn’t say who won.

Jane Kaczmarek may be best known for being mom to a gaggle of rambunctious boys in the sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle," but in real life she didn't become a parent until the age of 41, when she gave birth to daughter Frances in 1997. She and now-ex-husband Bradley Whitford went on to have two more children, George, born when Kaczmarek was 44, and Mary, who the actress gave birth to at age 46.

Holly Hunter has been so mum on her twin sons – who she delivered in 2006 when she was 47 – she never even revealed their names. Some reports have claimed the boys, whose father is Hunter’s longtime boyfriend British actor Gordon MacDonald, are called Claude and Press, but the Oscar-winning actress has yet to confirm ... and we doubt she will.