Firstly, wasn't sure whether to post here or in the miscarriage section, so I apologise if this post causes worry for anyone.
I have two wonderful DCs age 6 & 4. I've always wanted a larger family but DH wasn't up for that idea. So it took me 3 years to convince him of having a third DC. We finally agreed to wait until we'd extended the house and were earning more. So this all happened and in May we found out that DC3 was on the way. Throughout the summer I'd never felt so happy and our DC were excited about their new brother or sister.
Sadly we lost the baby 3 weeks ago and are completely devastated. I was 20 weeks but baby died around 13/14 weeks. I feel devastated about the loss and about the shattered dream of extending our family. I'm about to turn 39 so time is not on our side.
So what I'm wondering is, if anyone has been through similar and then decided to keep trying to extend their family in late 30s. Most of the mums I know with large families haven't experienced miscarriage. I'm confused to whether this is game over for us or if we could go through with another pregnancy again. I would probably be nearly 40 by the time we are ready to try again. I come from a largish family myself – my sis has 3 DCs, bro has 4 and neither have experienced late miscarriage. I'm so worried it will happen again. My friend says she thinks it's my age and is worried for me. The larger families I know had their DCs in their 20s and early 30s, but I didn't meet DH until I was 31.
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marmiteontoast76 · 25/09/2015 10:02
Marmite, so sorry for your loss 
I had 4DC and wasn't considering more - single following the end of a 15yr relationship, then I met my DH and I changed my mind. I'm now 37, he's 39 (DC are 12/10/8/5) and we started trying as soon as we were married. I had an early miscarriage (5w) in March (I'd alsohad a MC in early 2004 between DC1 and DC2) and I'm now 26w pregnant with a baby we conceived within 2 weeks of the MC.
Whatever timetable works for you is entirely fine, but there's every chance you could conceive again straight away. Did your Dr give you any specific cause for concern around your age after your recent MC? My instinct is that lots of women are having babies into their 40s now... Why shouldn't you be one of them if that's what you want?
Dh and I started Ttc when I was around 31. It took us 18 months to get pregnancy after some fertility investigations. Unbeknownst to me at the time I was having recurrent miscarriages, I probably has about 3-4 during that time (I thought my cycle was a bit irregular, but they were miscarriages due to a large polyp in my uterus that meant I couldn't stay pregnant).
That polyp was rectified and I fell pregnant with my first child July 2005. Very sadly, my waters broke at 21 weeks and I lost my beautiful dd at 25 weeks. We were told that we may never be able to carry a baby full term, we may never have surviving children, the risk was 20%. I was 34 at the time. I fell pregnant 4 weeks later and the first surviving dd was born at term at the end of the same year I lost our first dd. I was then 35. I went on to have a further 3 dds 19, 20 and 22 months later. I had the last dd at 40. They are now 8, 7, 5 and 3. So, they were all born between 35-40. I was sterilised at 40 because I would have kept on going!
So, I would say go for it. It's better to have tried than to live with the regret, the 'what ifs'. There are always what ifs, what if dd1 hadn't died? what if I had never had the recurrent miscarriages? The emotional aspect of this has really weighed hard on me over the past decade, not to mention the physical aspect of having 5 Dcs in almost exactly 6 years. So I am glad that I kept going, as I did want 4 Dcs (Dh and I are also from larger families), but it was certainly a very difficult journey.
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