To be surprised at someone being pregnant at 44

So you actually mean not a time for you and presumably difficult teenagers.

You must realize that isn't a universal experience, are you meaning to speak for everyone?

Goodness , well i don’t really on grandparents to help out. Most adults have plans to manage without grandparents when they decide to have kids

I always find that interesting as in 11 years of teaching additional needs I've barely come across any 'older parents'.

However I know what you are saying is correct. It just hasn't been my personal experience.

Of course it can happen at any age, but the likelihood increases as the age of the parents increases.

Oh you are so wrong when you see others who have loving grandparents. Little girl next door has one very elderly grandparents who is bed bound. She asks her mum why she can't have a gran, it's such a shame. Sees her friends going to grandparents for sleepovers etc

Unless you have experienced it, how do you know it’s not good ?

I know many...and it's not a time for teenagers. From first hand experience

Yeah I have to say my close friend who has 3 kids had her first aged 24, she bought her house and married the same year and is now a 6 figure earner in law. She also has traveled abroad with me and other friends, and I know she travels solo, and with her family. She is also London based!

She married a great guy and has a supportive family on both sides which has obviously helped her to “have it all” but yeah there’s nothing wrong with having kids in your 20s.

This can happen at any age. My mum was 29 when she had her son with Downs Syndrome and my friend had a daughter with DS also in her twenties. I have taught many children with ASD with young parents.

This topic is clearly gold on MN. Always illicits hundreds of replies and turns into a bit of a bun fight.

Most reasonable people would
a) not be surprised by a 44 yr old woman having a baby
b) acknowledge it is quite an old age to have a baby

On an anonymous forum, people will also go into detail with their thoughts and judgement, which in reality you might spend a few moments thinking privately and then move on.

Seriously?
I got pregnant at 52.
How, l have no idea (well, l do, but....) I was perimenopausal and he'd had chemo for testicular cancer.
I miscarried, not surprisingly, but of course it's possible if you're still having periods.

I didn’t really think about the age aspect at the time, but when I was 10 I had a friend whose mum was 40+ when she had his little sister.

I had a vague awareness that she was considered an older mum but wasn’t astonished by it or anything and knew it happened like that .

So I’m wondering why I knew this from age 10 and yet an adult doesn’t know this.

Again this does make me think it’s a man if it’s not a wind up.

I agree with you, but the smug, judgemental comments works both ways.

‘well, in more educated circles women have children older’ (or ‘in London…’)

’I was too busy travelling the world in my 20s and becoming CEO in my 30s for children’

As if only thick, boring brood mares from oop Norf would be stupid enough to have children before 35.

Maybe Op is a man?

Some men seem to be genuinely clueless about women and pregnancy. They either seem to think we can’t have kids past early 30s - and some of that is due to the influence of red pill rhetoric about women expiring at 25 - or the other extreme, where they don’t think about the biological clock at all.

And they also don’t seem to realise the impact of ageing on their own sperm.

My mum had me at 42 in the 70s. I did have my DCs before 35 but a lot of my friends had their firsts later or had a third at 40-ish. In my NCT class I was the youngest at 30!!

Course it’s a wind up thread. Of course OP will be very smug they got 14 pages of replies! 😬

We’ve definitely had a conversation about it and of course she knows all about my miscarriage history.
For years she’s told me that she never wants children and despite me telling her her that she’d maybe change her mind one day when she meets someone special she was always adamant that she never wanted any. Guess what, she’s met that someone special and children are being talked about by them both. Before you say anything about her being coerced into having children by either me or her boyfriend I can tell you that isn’t the case. My DD isn’t one to be coerced or pushed into anything that she doesn’t want to do and can make up her mind by herself quite independently of others.
She wants to have a life before settling down and has said if there are any fertility issues then so be it.
She is single minded and has her own ideas and take on things so much so that if I had said that I’d had her at say 16, she wouldn’t have wanted to follow my example there.
She looks aghast at girls her age that were in school with her who have children some of them are on their second or third child.
She says wow that’s so young to settle down. I think she may have inherited my free spirit.

44 is not unusual. It’s not ideal.
30 is ideal.
20 to 24 is peak time.
38 onwards is dicing with fertility.
Menopause with a teenager is bad, menopause with a toddler is really bad.

In middle class circles it isn’t acceptable before 35 onwards.

I am 45, I’m the youngest mother in DD group of friends, she is 17, I was 28 giving birth, her friends parents well in the 50’s, most are divorced. I’ll be 52 when DS is 17, dreading it, couldn’t imagine been 52 with a 7 year old. I should have had mine earlier in hindsight.

Tbh a lot of her friends have problems with their parents as the parents just want peace and quiet, between menopause and their full life before children, they’re burnt out, very little input or patience. Generation disaster

before reliable contraception people had kids throughout their fertile years. But it would have been kid number 8 in your 40s not waiting until you’re over 40 to even try. They feel different to me some how. Like with the first one you’re tried and tested and you have probably much older children around and there was more of a community back then.

These days, post 40 probably caring responsibilities for elderly parents looming on the horizon and no experience of raising kids prior. If anything it would seem much harder to transition from your comfortable life you’ve had for years into the trenches of the early days of parenthood. Less of a village and no older kids to help with the younger.

im now 40 but my kids are older. When I had mine my MIL and mother were fit and able to look after them. My mother in law now has dementia and needs to be cared for and my mother has developed quite a few health issues in her 60s. Though still able to watch older kids I wouldn’t leave her with a tot. I’m very glad I didn’t wait until my 40s to have them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fit active and energetic and in no way do I feel too old to be pregnant, give birth and care for a baby. But my village is now elderly rather than middle aged and I’m quite happy channeling my boundless early 40s energy into active stuff for myself.

I did not even want a baby until age 37. I had ds aged 41.

Not good for you maybe. Some are perfectly happy with it.

Not surprising and never would've been. My grandfather was born (in 1918) when his mother was 46. Eleanor of Aquitaine had King John when she was 42 and that was in 1166.

Not good in what way?

Do you know many 60 year olds? It's not the 19th century, they aren't somehow decripit

In many areas of the U.K. it would be outside of the norm but on mumsnet it’s probably average. Because having kids post 40 is wonderful and responsible and anything under 35 is ridiculously young and you’ll be dragging your kids up and giving them terrible start in life.

Im 52 too ,even if you did get pregnant i suspect the chances of having a full term healthy pregnancy and baby are greatly reduced.