To think I’m leaving having kids too late at 31 and single?

I had mine at 37 & 40, it took a few years to conceive. On the one hand, and at the time, I was glad to have had a career and be financially stable; we give our kids a good life with great holidays and latest trainers, etc. But, at 56 and with an 18 and 16 year old I deeply regret not having had them earlier. I worry I will never see my grandchildren or play an active role in their lives. If DC wait to have kids at the age I was, I’ll be 74 before my first grandchild arrives. And what if my DD ends up with one of the awful DH’s we read about daily on here and I’m dead and can’t help her?

Agree with this everyone is different, if you want children maybe pay for some fertility testing done.

I had my DS at 29,no problems getting pregnant but did have 3 miscarriages before him. I'm now 33 and am 5 months pregnant... Took us 3 years Dr's told us I wouldn't fall naturally and needed ivf. I did fall naturally but we were happy with just one, so weren't going down IVF route. Had I not had my son I would have mentally struggled with the thought of not having a child. We started TTC again when I was 30.

It isn’t too late but with every passing year people, couple up. You need some fun times and to get to know someone as well as possible. I most definitely went in to no time to waste mode at 30.That meant any bloke that it just didn’t feel right with I wasn’t going to waste time on.

I was single through choice at 31. I didn't want kids either. Da daaaa 10years later... there's dh and there's our baby who is now 25!

Definitely not too late. I met my DH when I was 27 and didn’t have DS until I was 43.

We spent the years developing careers and travelling the world. We didn’t even discuss the prospect of having a child until I was over 40.

I had my first at 32 and I’m one of the youngest mothers I know - most had their first at 34-40.

I would say maybe 1/3 of them had not met their OH by 31. But most had. And the ones that found their OH later, made an effort to (online dating etc) - it didn’t just happen.

I don’t think you need to be hurrying to get pregnant just yet but if you want to have children in a long term relationship then you do need to be focusing on finding that relationship.

I’d recommend a fertility check up to get an idea of your egg reserve, and taking a dedicated hobby attitude towards dating.

It’s a hard question because it’s all about you as an individual. I know just as many people who have struggled with infertility in their 30s vs those who have had an easy time getting pregnant past 35.

I would say if you really want children, start working towards it.

Id also say don’t settle for a rubbish man just for kids as that isn’t ideal.

Good luck with dating x

If it's a priority, I'd focus on intentional dating rather than egg freezing. Should be compatible with career goals etc as you want someone who's life fits with yours

Totally agree!

None of us can tell you if you’ve left it too late, if you haven’t had a fertility check up. They can cost several hundred but they are worth it imo for women who are in their thirties, who definitely know they want (biological) children but haven’t found the right partner yet. Better to find out now if you need to freeze your eggs or potentially become a SMBC now - rather than risk getting a nasty shock in a few years time if you’ve met someone but then find out you have a low egg count for your age or other age related fertility problems.

Not too late. I met my husband when I was 37 had 2 DC at 39 and 41( almost 42) with no conception problems.

I think you have time. I'm 36 and in the same position and getting worried though so I'd definitely seriously look for the right guy now if I were you.

Just to add egg freezing doesn't have a very high success rate on the whole but is more effective if done before 35.

This is mostly outdated and misleading info that has been debunked by Jean M Twenge in her brilliant book, ‘The Impatient Woman’s guide to getting pregnant’.
By reading her book, I conceived within 4 months (at the age of 37). I took Co-enzyme Q-10 supplements, and TTC one day before ovulation, which worked like a charm.

In reality, 94% of 25-34 year old women conceived within 1 year of TTC and 84% of 35-44 year olds conceived within 1 year so it’s not a huge difference. And for younger women the chance of pregnancy in each cycle is more like 50% and 40% for older women.

When conceiving naturally, older women are almost as fertile as younger women but with IVF, the younger you are, the better your chances are.

Not too late but too late to waste time.

Basically if you don't think after the third date that you want to move in with a man within 6-12 months, bin them off. If a man is dragging his heels about moving in after 12 months, bin him off. If a man isn't proposing within 2 years, bin him off.

You don't have time to waste 6 months being super casual and another year to move in, then another 3 years for him to feel ready to think about marriage. You need someone on the same page or you'll end up 36yo and in a not-quite-good-enough relationship that you're not sure about but worried that it's your last chance to settle and have kids.

I hate how old fashioned this all sounds but if you want kids, your number 1 priority is finding a good dad for them.

You're young, and you'll find the right man when you least expect it and you will have a baby when the time is right for you.

Me and my husband had out first baby at 36, and I'm glad because we got to live more of our life before having children.

What that all the “ good men” are taken by 30? Please show me those statistics.

YANBU I met my ex at 31, had my son at 37.
My mum had my sister at 45, totally natural and she was a healthy baby.

That website is a meta analysis of peer reviewed research studies into miscarriage. It links the primary sources beneath the model.

I'm definitely not scaremongering - you might have contradictory medical research you've been shown or read, but this database is based on fairly robust medical research so I don't think it can be thought to be scaremongering.

I'm very much of the opinion that the more you know about fertility etc the better equipped you are to make decisions. I'm not trying to scare OP - lots of women CAN easily get pregnant up until age 45. I actually know lots who have. But you don't know if you're an outlier who will be super fertile in your 40s or someone who becomes infertile in their early 30s. I think it's best to know all the averages and the research and make your plans around this

I met my now husband at 31, married and had first baby at 34, second baby at 35. At 31 your fertility isn't a major concern - the hard part is finding a man decent enough to father any kids! Most people who meet later in life go through stages faster than those who get together in their early 20s ...

I’m afraid I’m not. The statistics I quoted are on women who will never have children. This is whole population data, not individual fertility at a given age. If you take the percentage of women over 45 with no children as 18%, what you don’t see is the vast difference in childlessness between women at the younger and older end of that age range. For women in their 70s it is only 10%, whereas for women in their late 40s it is 30%+. The stats are also that by 30, only half of women who are not yet mothers or expectant mothers, will go on to become mothers. Clearly that involves some extrapolations based on trends, but it has been accurate to Conservative over the last 20 years. The general tend in the U.K., that has seen the average number of children per mother drop from 2.4 to 1.49 (and lower in other countries - South Korea is on 0.8 and Japan 0.9) is interesting because family sizes have not shifted that much among those who do have children. There are slightly more 1 child families, but broadly speaking the percentage of 2, 3 and 4+ children families are the same as 40 years ago. What’s changed is the number of women having no children. Mostly, not by choice.

Freeze your eggs if you can. I regret not doing that in my late 20s early 30s.

As someone who has actually gone through assisted reproduction twice successfully and through that consulted with top fertility doctors in both London and New York your data set is just wrong - it also is contradictory to a whole load of much more credible resources e.g. the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/miscarriage/causes/), the Mayo Clinic, etc. You need to be more careful with which sources you quote as you're scaremongering on a pretty sensitive subject.

You're confusing the 1/3 stat - that includes women who have not had children yet - it is not the number of women who are childless after the end of their fertile period which is c.15% for women in the 45-50 category.

@Aimtodobetter They're not! If you count early/chemical miscarriages, the research says about 75% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage at age 40, but these include very early miscarriage from 3 weeks, so often the woman wouldn't know she was pregnant

There's data on miscarriage risk here if you're interested - you can add ages etc
https://datayze.com/miscarriage-chart