EXCLUSIVE: Michelle Bridges ‘I was called irresponsible for giving birth at 45’
Michelle Bridges, 45, has opened up about the abuse she received when she became a mum.
“When it did happen I was 43. I got a lot of heat for [becoming pregnant]. A lot of heat. And it was such a kick in the guts for me because I was so excited,” she told WHO magazine editor Keshnee Kemp on the Raw Talks podcast.
“I thought ‘So what? I can’t talk about it because I’m an older mother and I fell pregnant naturally?’
“They’d say I was irresponsible for having a child at 44 naturally. I was like ‘Hello! I’m not sixteen! I’m not a teen! I wanted to have a baby late and it just happened that way.
"It was a beat up. It wasn’t as though I was going out saying ‘You should have a baby at 44,’" the mum-of-one, told Keshnee on the Raw Talks podcast.
Michelle explained that her career had been her priority for much of her thirties, and that, as well as a past relationship, delayed her decision to start a family.
“I’d been in a relationship before Steve [Wallis] and that relationship was for nine years. So it was a substantial amount of time. And in that relationship was when my career really took off. So when my career really took off was right around that time 35 year old age. And that’s just how the dice rolled for me.
“It was there in the back of my mind. The ‘should I? Is this going to happen for me?’” she confessed.
“And the honest truth of it was I was never really maternal. I loved my career, I loved my job. And I never really had that instinctual ‘oh my god I need to have my baby’.
“But then again at the same time I would think ‘is it going to be something I regret?’ and my husband at the time – he was 17 years older than me – already had two grown up boys. He had always said to me ‘look Mich, if you want to do it, do it. I’m not going to hold you back. But he was never really saying ‘I want to.’
“It was all going to be my choice and I just didn’t feel confident enough. Because I kind of wanted the person I was going to have a baby with to say ‘let’s do this together!’ so it kind of just never happened. And I just thought, maybe it won’t,’” Michelle explained.
Everything changed when things became serious with Steve, the father of her three-year-old son, Axel.
"When I was with Steve, and he’s a dad of three children, and he’s a doting father. He’s one of those guys, that was born to be a dad. Loves it. He’s just got the knack. It’s a very natural thing for me.
"When he said, ‘let’s have a child’ I didn’t even have to think about it. I said ‘OK!'” Michelle told Keshnee.
"I’m literally crying now just talking about Axel, he completely changed me."
Listen to the full chat with Michelle on the Raw Talks podcast below.
