• Tracey Kahn, a single mother by choice, gave birth at 49 and 51.
• The younger girl is a tween, and the older will turn 13 next spring.
• Kahn, 61, has found parenting more challenging as her daughters have grown older.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tracey Kahn, 61, a publicist and the owner of a fine jewelry company in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'd always thought that being a mom was part of my life plan. But it wasn't until my mid-40s that I began to wonder whether parenting would pass me by.

My career had always come first. Although I'd had serious relationships, I'd never committed to marriage. But, in the late 2000s, I thought, "Oh my God, I don't have kids!"

I'm a hustler and have always gone after what I wanted. I had a full physical and was approved for IVF using donor eggs and sperm. It wasn't the easiest pregnancy, but my daughter, Scarlett, arrived three days after my 49th birthday, weighing a healthy eight pounds.

I was keen for her to have a sibling. As soon as I felt my body had recovered from the C-section, I did another round of IVF. Scarlett's sister, Eloise, was born in December 2014.

Motherhood was exhilarating. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have my own family at last.

Still, there were challenges. The worst thing was going straight into menopause the moment I stopped breastfeeding Eloise when she was 6 months old.

Raising my girls is more difficult at the moment

Despite the hot flashes and mood swings, I managed to keep up with the girls. There were times when I was exhausted because I constantly needed to catch up on my sleep. But, looking back, parenting a baby and a toddler was a cakewalk compared to raising a tween and soon-to-be teen.

The tougher years are going on right now. It's a combination of the girls approaching adolescence and me being in my 60s.

Scarlett is in seventh grade, and Eloise is in fourth grade. She'll be in middle school next year — the stage when children want their own identity and freedom.

It's certainly been the case with Scarlett, who turns 13 in the spring. She used to play with Eloise a lot, but she's now very sensitive and wants her own space and privacy.

I have to be thoughtful about how I speak to her because there's a lot going on emotionally. She's trying to find herself while dealing with school, friend groups, and boys.

When you're older, your short-term memory changes, but your long-term memory is very sharp. I remember sixth grade like it was yesterday. "It was the same when I was at school," I'll tell Scarlett when she talks about cliques. There's always going to be the geeks and the more popular kids.

But she doesn't like to listen to her mother, just like me at her age. She'll get mad and say that I'm too old to understand. We argue, and she calls me out on everything. I'm learning to back off and let her figure things out for herself.

I'm very aware of my advancing age

Meanwhile, managing the kids' activities is a full time job. Scarlett goes horseback riding and swims. Eloise plays lacrosse and volleyball. They love the arts. I'll take them to classes after school. They have sleepovers with friends.

It's non-stop. I constantly ask myself whether I can make it to another school function. I still want to enjoy things with my girls, but I'm slower than I used to be. I feel like I can't get out of bed sometimes because my joints hurt. I recently went to a field hockey game and met another woman my age watching her granddaughter play.

Late motherhood has made me hyper-aware of getting older. Scarlett has promised to visit my grave every day after I die. My sister said, "How can you talk about death like that?" But I find it endearing. It's better that the kids are realistic about the future.

People think it's morbid, but I have to think ahead. I'm a big planner and want everything set up for the girls in advance. I'll be in my 70s when they graduate from college. I don't know whether I'll be around to see them married. Then again, I could live to 95.

I cherish every moment

Eloise is such a sweet child, she gives me back massages at night. They're amazing. But I don't want her and Scarlett to feel I will use them as caretakers. I'll employ somebody to help me when the time comes so my daughters can travel and lead great lives.

In the meantime, I'm soaking up the joy of being with them. Every morning, I watch them go out the door to conquer the day. I'm excited to see them again at night. I want to know which poem Scarlett wrote and how Eloise did in her dance class.

You need perseverance to raise tweens and teens in your sixties. But the rewards are incredible.

Do you have a powerful story to share with Business Insider about parenting? Please send details to this reporter at [email protected].

• Amy Speace became a mom for the first time one month shy of her 50th birthday.
• The musician underwent IVF and used donor eggs.
• She does yoga and meditates daily as part of her regime to be a patient, hands-on mom.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amy Speace, 56, a singer-songwriter from Nashville. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was younger, I never wanted to have children. My career as a singer-songwriter meant everything to me. At 30, I got signed to a record label and became ambitious, touring all over the country.

Then, as I got older, my attitude to motherhood changed. "I'm so busy doing this and that," I thought. "What if I forget to have kids?" Then, at 46, I met my second husband, Jamey, now 50.

We tried for a baby the minute we were together. But we didn't conceive. We looked into adoption, but the cost was prohibitive. Also, it might have taken years.

Luckily, Jamey's company health insurance covered about 85% of fertility treatments. So we decided to try IVF. The doctors said my eggs were too old to be viable at 49, and we should choose a donor.

First, I had a full exam to check whether my body could carry a baby. I had surgery to remove some polyps from my uterus. Then, we picked a donor who had a similar profile to mine.

Her eggs were fertilized by Jamey's sperm, and I was placed on the hormones to get ready for the transfer. It took two attempts, but we were lucky enough to get pregnant in July 2017.

I took a year off touring after my son was born

The pregnancy was super easy. I did yoga throughout. We hoped for a natural birth, and my doctor said that would be fine. She said that I was healthier than many 20-year-olds.

However, the baby had other ideas. I was induced due to back labor but was told it could take 36 hours for me to be dilated enough to deliver. We opted for a C-section because I didn't want to go through all that and end up needing an emergency one.

Our son, Huck, was born healthy. I fell in love with him the moment he was placed in my arms.

We went through the usual thing of sleepless nights for four months when you can't see straight. But things got better. I played a festival when I brought him along with support from my mother-in-law. It was hard because I was nursing and pumping. I realized I would just be home with him and took a year off touring.

I was tired, but I don't think I got more tired than younger moms did. I remained active and meditated daily. My spirituality has made me more patient and calm. It's helped me deal with the reality that I'll be almost 70 when Huck graduates high school. I'll never see him when he reaches my age.

I also practice gratitude. I was not ready to have a baby until I was 49. Then, a miracle happened. It was the way my life was supposed to be.

Jamey and I went through a hard time during the pandemic, and we separated and divorced. We shielded Huck and our relationship is very amicable as we co-parent him.

I laugh about bringing up a 6-year-old during menopause

It took a while for me to find my group of similar-minded moms. I'd go to the playground, and it would be full of 20-somethings watching their kids. But I made a good friend through Huck after he started playing with her 5-year-old. I've also established a network of older moms who read my blog.

We often discuss the funny side, such as raising a little kid during menopause. Huck, now 6, has his own room, but he sometimes brings his blankie and crawls into bed with me.

I have unbelievable night sweats. Sometimes I have to change three times a night. I'll put my son back in his bed and he'll say, "Mommy, you're all wet."

Laughter is part of being in the moment. Whatever the future brings, we'll live our lives that way.

Do you have an interesting story to share with Business Insider about being a new parent in later life? Please send details to [email protected]

• "Joy" is about the British doctors who helped conceive the first IVF baby.
• The Netflix movie stars Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, and James Norton.
• Here's where Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, is now.

"Joy" is about the British doctors who helped conceive the first baby using IVF treatment in the late 1970s.

The Netflix movie stars Bill Nighy as Patrick Steptoe, the director of the Centre for Human Reproduction, Thomasin McKenzie as Jean Purdy, an embryologist, and James Norton as Robert Edwards, a physiologist.

The trio started working on IVF in the late 1960s when Steptoe started collecting egg cells from women and using sperm to fertilize them artificially at the Centre for Human Reproduction in Oldham, near Manchester in northwest England. He worked with Purdy and Edwards for almost a decade to try to help women get pregnant using the technique.

The New York Times reported that the team made 100 unsuccessful attempts to implant embryos using volunteers before they were finally successful.

In 1977, Bristol couple Lesley and John Brown came to the clinic after trying for nine years to have a baby.

After implanting Brown with a fertilized embryo, Purdy was the first person to see the embryo's cell division, which later became the Browns' first child.

Louise Brown was born in 1978

Louise Joy Brown was born on July 25, 1978, with her middle name giving the Netflix movie its title. She's often called the world's first "test-tube baby," although she was actually conceived in a petri dish.

Brown is an ambassador for IVF, and is "passionate about breaking the silence on all things fertility and ending the taboo about getting help for fertility issues or being born through scientific means," according to her website.

She lives in Bristol and has two sons who were conceived naturally.

In an interview at Bristol's Old Vic Theatre this year to coincide with the play "A Child of Science," Brown said: "Steptoe and Edwards were like grandfathers to me growing up. Patrick died when I was quite young; I last saw him when we did the Wogan show together, and he held my hand alongside other babies that he and Bob had brought into the world at Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridgeshire, which they opened after my birth."

She added, "Bob Edwards I was able to get to know as an adult. He came to my wedding and was the first person I rang when I got pregnant after my parents. I knew him and his family as friends. Unfortunately, Jean Purdy died at the age of 39 and I did not know her."

Purdy died in 1985.