To be surprised at someone being pregnant at 44

I agree with this. However, I also think that people should consider the children in all of this.

If you have a baby too young are you in a position to provide them with a good life and will you end up resenting them if you haven’t had the time to have fun/study/build a career first.

If you have a baby too old is it really fair on them when they’re teenagers/young adults with elderly parents and will you really be able to give every phase your all …or will you struggle due to age/life stage.

Our decision to bring children into this world should actually be about them, not us.

Surely there’s somewhere in the middle though. 23 seems too young, 44 seems too old. Early 30’s certainly seems a good choice from a fertility point of view if one is lucky enough to be in the position to have children then.

You can “go for it” all you want and still not meet the right person until later age and this is what’s happening to a lot of young women.

Not everyone is ok to settle with a man who is just “good enough” to have kids with that will later leave them as a single parent .

Women want someone they can see being a great father and partner, that they can also be with for the rest of their lives. And the truth is there’s a lack of committed, decent responsible and emotionally available men who truly believe in reciprocity and equity within relationships.

I support the idea of fertility checks but generally speaking I think if a woman doesn’t want kids in her 20s she shouldn’t do it “just in case” her fertility dips off early. Spending your 20s as a parent is definitely not right for everyone whether you’ve met the right person or not.

I know some people who waited until their 30s to have kids even if they married in their 20s which is reasonable.

But I don’t know anyone who was ready to have their first kid in their 20s or 30s, but delayed it deliberately to 40s. Women know and are definitely keenly aware of menopause and declining fertility, but life happens.

Women still know about the menopause. We really do.

My post was framed in the context that I knew when I was young I wanted a family, so I went for it while I was young and went for it. My nice chap choice lasted 18 years before we divorced and that’s life
But we still have our kids

The myth now being sold to women that having kids can be delayed and that age regarding fertility is simply an inconvenience until every box is ticked is one of the most bonkers phenomenon in living history in my view

Are you male and stupid?

She already had 4 children, this was not IVF, she didn't want a 5th at 50.

I read it that her mother was 48, not her. But I have a friend who had an unplanned pregnancy at 50. She had the baby too, both healthy.

That’s nice for you, but that path isn’t for everyone for all sorts of reason.

Some just don’t want to be married or have kids young, that just doesn’t sound like fun to them and that’s fine. They would resent settling down that young and as a result wouldn’t make great partners/parents at that time.

And others might want to but aren’t sure if they’ve met the right person, or if they’re financially/emotionally in a good place to start a family.

Due to my childhood I was aware my picker was off, so I was always quite cautious and knew I had a lot of work to do before I trusted myself to choose a decent man.

I mentioned upthread my friend who married/had kids young and is also flying in her career and has a great social life. However equally I know friends who settled down young and bitterly regret it - usually due to the kind of man they eventually realised they were with. One was divorced with 2 kids by age 26 after extreme DV, another divorced in mid 30s after a decade of her having to do and be everything while he did increasingly little and she ended up severely unwell due to stress. They both wish they had waited until they were older to settle down with someone.

A lot of it is luck too as far as finding a (good) spouse goes. I have a childhood friend who at age 21 went home with her first “one night stand” who ended up being her forever guy. She got pregnant 6 months later and is still married almost two decades later. Moving at that pace so young often ends up badly but luckily he was a good egg.

Someone else might choose their partner more carefully and vet them for years only to end up with a closeted narcissist cheat or the man who walks out when his wife is pregnant. We see it all the time on here.

Do you not think others have had a lovely life while not walking the exact same path as you?

Because your post sounds so convinced that your life was the best path to choose....

Great for you.

But.we are all millions of individuals with different personalities, genetic makeup, preferences, situations...

Its crazy to say yours is the best route for all

But there's the element of good fortune that the guy you dated in your early 20s turned out to be a good spouse, and you had decent fertility. I'm glad you have a lovely life but sometimes things just don't fall into place.
If I'd got pregnant and married to the guy I was engaged to at 21, I don't think we'd still be together and if we were, not overly happily and I'd probably have had to bury his mother under the patio

Nonsense. 19th century peasants🙄

But that was with IVF?

That sounds brilliant, @Lardychops! I would say you probably had the life I wanted, but unfortunately I didn’t meet anyone for a long time who could put up with me! (then he left anyway, buts that’s a whole other story, and at least I have my amazing DD) I never wanted to be an older mum, and always wanted a large family, despite living in deepest darkest London 😂

Point is I found a decent spouse at 23 got my arse in gear by committing and going on a journey to build a life together - we built our lives together while our counter parts were playing the field and travelling, dating and chipping and changing ( god knows what that most be like now in the ‘swipe left /right- always something better out there’culture etc.
We lived skint in the bedsit, had the first baby, did uni and post grad while the other worked, built the careers in turn, climbed the ladder while having more kids, bought the grotty one bed flat with two kids then built up from there

All I’m saying is if you want a family don’t delay ‘while doing you’
‘Do you ‘ while having a family young -it’s brilliant x

Agree @AutumnAllTheWay women can be so unnecessarily critical of each other. If it’s not older mothers vs younger mothers, it’s mums against childfree women and vice versa.

I feel women - on all sides - who are genuinely happy with their choices wouldn’t go out of their way to talk down to others who took a different path.

I have friends who had their first kid 15-20, friends who had their first kid at 40+ and friends who don’t have or want any kids, friends who are SAHM, friends who work in high powered jobs while having kids and everything else in between. We all get along as we respect each others circumstances and decisions.

Its awful when theres judgement either way.

However- usually, a thread is started semi criticising older mums (probably by a bored poster who never actually returns to thread). There are replies for/ against. Then an older mums or two, who feels attacked, says something in reply about how younger mums arent ideal in other ways, as a type of defence.

Younger mums then feel criticised and lash out about older mums, and it snowballs.

If you were a younger mum, you will feel the things being said are more spiteful to your camp, but the same is true vice versa.

All doing our best. Yet threads like this one are constant, and always have mums turning on each other, when in actual fact, they wouldn't have even thought such things without the inflammatory post being made.

Lime.all things, its swings and roundabouts. Each family/ individual different, and we should all be supporting each other.

Yeah, this. See it all the time on here. Always with the travelling it seems. Needs to be on a bingo card.

I think the attacks on younger mothers tend to be a lot more vitriolic and personal in general. The stereotypes are you’re irresponsible, uneducated, child’s probably raised by grandparents, promiscuous, multiple boyfriends, you’re relying on benefits, no fun in life, popping out babies, you must regret having children, must be broke, low class circles etc.

I mean, I wouldn't wait until the age of 44 to start trying for a baby, but I wouldn't be shocked by a 44 year old pregnant woman either. It's obviously possible.
I made my mum a grandmother at 48, sent one of her friends into an existential crisis.

Yes, I agree and where I live IVF is offered up to 43 years old.

Had my son at 39, the eldest in our NCT class was 41….

Agree that you find more older mums on Mumsnet than UK average, but I don’t think it’s because people make it up in an anonymous online forum. The Mumsnet demographic is predominantly well educated women and there is a correlation between level of education and age to have children.

I was also a little surprised... but i guess its the laws of large numbers - small percentage, lots of women....

It’s not unheard of at all, I agree. I am just surprised at the numbers, that’s all. Despite all the MN anecdotes and several celebrities having babies in this age group, 6,000 a year still seems bonkers (in a good way).

No miscarriages, no donor eggs.