Sister says my husband and I are selfish for wanting a child in our 40s

And surely you cannot be serious by any stretch of the imagination.

Ignore her. Could she be jealous?

True that a 5 year age gap may mean they don't share the same interests as children. However a sibling is for life, and a 5 year age gap really isn't much as an adult.

The world would be a much better place if so many other people put as much thought into having children as you have done and invested in their relationship and life prior to having children. Your sister should be more worried about the number of children raised by teenagers and single parents. There are so many unwilling parents out there not raising the children that they ‘accidently’ have.

I wanted to add a second perspective on IVF. I just went through the process for secondary infertility and can honestly say that it was a great experience. I understand that many many people have a difficult time with it but that wasn’t the case for me.

I did one egg retrieval, ended up with a few healthy (PGT tested) embryos and got pregnant on my first implantation.

My advice is go to a good private clinic and get started NOW. Don’t wait because even though my process was easy it’s still very time consuming. Push for fertility tests now, don’t wait for a failed transfer. Get your AMH tested, a saline ultrasound to make the uterus looks good, sperm tests, thyroid, get a uterine biopsy to test for bacteria. Start high dose of CoQ10 now for both you and your DH. Make sure you pay extra for PGT testing so you decrease chances of miscarrying.

There is an IVF positivity thread on Reddit that I recommend—stay off the other IVF threads because they are far too negative.

Good Luck!

I’m confused.

How have you been struggling if you just started trying?

I'm not going to comment on your choice because it is, well, yours BUT I will say that like you I was (and am) fit and active but perimenopause hit me like a ton of bricks at about 44 and everything became SO MUCH harder: energy, mobility, strength... Maybe it will be easier for you; I hope it is--but if it happens get on HRT early!

I'm in my 40s with teens and shudder at the idea of having to cope with the baby/toddler stage again! It's not really any business of anyone else's, if you and DH feel you can cope with it, can afford the IVF etc. Plenty of people do start families late now. You'd have to go into it with eyes open, there is the increased risk of disabilities, and be aware you may be supporting your children/have them living at home until you are past retirement age. Make sure you plan financially and have wills and life insurance in place.

I've an older mum friend I met when we both had wee ones. She's in her 60s and should be approaching retirement, but is still partially or fully supporting young adult children as a single parent. The DC lost their dad young, he was 10 years older than her and died while they were still teenagers. Died without a will, had no life insurance, made no provision for them. Friend wants to retire and downsize, but young adult DC want to still be able to live at home because they're either low waged or underemployed and can't afford to move out. She deeply resents it, but doesn't feel she can push them out, both have had MH problems and it's not their fault she had them in middle age.

The obsession with the age 35 as a fertility threshold is outdated and unscientific. It is based on data from 1700s France church birth records. That's right - the 18th century. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24128176 Public health has improved quite a lot since then. The pill didn't exist, and if they had most of their babies at age 20-30 they might have stopped having sex to prevent further pregnancy.

Use some 2004 data instead: 82% of women aged between 35 and 39 fell pregnant within a year.

You live in the city - do your mum, sister and wider family live rurally? Mine do, and they freak out about anyone over 35 being pregnant. My mum recently said she thought a pregnant 39 year old neighbour was too old 🙄 Meanwhile none of my city friends age 33-39 have had a baby yet.

Don't take the judgemental twats too seriously, do what's right for you.

I assumed that no one could possibly be such a massive hypocrite as to call people selfish for having children when they themselves have children. Was I wrong to assume?

I don’t know how old you are, you sound very young because you talk like this is the first crisis the world has ever had to face. If humans stopped having children every time then we would have died out a long time ago. My grandparents were Polish Jews who managed to survive the holocaust - they moved to London after the war ended and went on to have their younger children under nuclear threat during the Cold War. It turned out ok.

You do not know what the future holds for OP’s child, or any of our children. You’re just regurgitating possible threats that you’ve read online and presenting them as irrefutable fact.

I'm confused why the options on this thread seem to be having children in your 20s or 40s. What's wrong with early to mid 30s! After 35 is when fertility drops off quite sharply for women and disability probabilities [increase and for men it's around 40 - and it's got no relationship to how fit and healthy and active you are - it's just how aging works. If you want another child then go for it as soon as possible! I don't think its selfish to have a child at your ages - you sound like good parents but I wouldn't be waiting around at this point!

First comment nails it!

OP - What you decide to do or not do with your uterus couldn't be less of anyone's business!

Like others have said, there is an increased risk of disability. You could ( possibly ) be giving your son a future where he has a severely disabled sibling and elderly parents . That's not much fun.

Ignore your sister and get on with your family. However, you cannot expect sympathy if you have trouble conceiving because you did know, I assume, that it takes longer when you are older (first child born when I was 39 - so no judgment from me). Good luck. XX

You know nothing about me, including whether I have children or not. The world could of course end in the next 10 years. Remember who is in control of the nuclear weapons? And what's 10 years got to do with it anyway? Vast numbers of people will be displaced by climate change in the next few decades. Do you think that won't affect the UK? And a substantial part of London will go under water. That's just part of what is facing OP's as yet unborn 2nd child. Their world will be a far, far harder place than their parents' world was in their youth. And the decision not to have children will be pushed onto them, on top of everything else.

I suppose it’s selfish in terms of how long your DC are likely to have you around, and how young they will be when they need to start looking after elderly you.

My DM had me at 20. She and my stepfather got together and had many years of travelling the world and living abroad between 40 and 70, so definitely haven’t missed out. The plus for me is that I’m 60 and still have my mum. Only very recently has she started to need physical help.

I unfortunately didn’t have my DC until I was 34 and 37, which to me is older than is ideal. My DD will only be early 40s when I’m 80.
I’m unlikely to be able to offer the same support to her when she has young children as my mum was able to help me. We are all sad about that.

I’ve just had my last baby at 38. I had my eldest at 26. I definitely found pregnancy much harder and I have a few health concerns now which has made the post partum period a bit harder. I don’t know how much is age related and how much is to do with the fact I get less rest, as I have older children to look after and can’t just sleep when the baby sleeps. We have 6 children, for reference.
I do have a lot more money and better work/life balance now than I did when I had my first though so I do think there are benefits to having children a little older.

I don’t think it has anything to do with your sister!

Well I think you sound like absolutely fantastic parents and it bloody well isn’t selfish at all. Not everyone has the luxury of having kids in their 20s and not everyone wants them in their 20s. You could give birth at 20 and die at 40 . Ignore the idiots saying it’s selfish as it’s not. My mum had me in her 40s and is still roaring with health now in her 70s. I’ll be late 30s when I have my kids and if someone dares to say I’m selfish there will be words. I’m glad I got to experience life rather than getting pregnant at 20 and not living .

You sound like you have had a wonderful life and have done things on your own time line. Bravo to you! To those saying you are selfish; how ridiculous! They are probably jealous. Ignore the idiots.

At their age of 39, OP has not ‘substantially’ increased her risk of a disabled child, nor is the world going to end in the next 10 years. Politically it’s a scary time, but it’s not the first and it won’t be the last. Your opinion on our children’s future prospects is just that - an opinion.

As for the age gap thing - you don’t even have children, who on earth made you an authority on optimum age gaps? There are many advantages to larger age gaps, lots of parents I know have deliberately aimed for a larger gap.

You seemed to have been very deliberate about your life choices, you will have known about fertility rates amongst women in their 20s, 30s and 40s (and men) from the beginning. So these are the consequences of your choices. There’s not much else to say, really.

Your mum and sister don’t have a say, as they won’t be dealing with the consequences.

As for it being “selfish” having a baby in your 40s: I don’t think that’s true if you have a healthy baby and you both remain healthy and employed. Trickier bouncing back from any one of those things going wrong when you’re older, though, and you and the children will pay the price. But, you are where you are. All the things you did in your 20s and 30s must have been worth all these risks. Only you can judge that.

I think it’s quite strange to feel that way when you had your DC at what I would have said was a very average age. Are your DC’s friend’s parents unusually young? I wouldn’t have thought many people have a memory of their parents at their ‘peak’ unless they had them as teenagers.

I think that humans are capable of, and have a moral duty to, consider the child before going ahead and having one because we'd like to be parents. It always dismays me how little people on these threads seem to think about what's in the child's interests. Personally, I would hate to be born now - the future is going to be very, very grim, and there is no prospect of any of the major problems being solved. In fact climate change is already unsolvable and with the help of Trump is forging ahead at speed. I'm sure OP and her husband have a lot going for them, but there's no real explanation for why they've waited so long, thus substantially increasing the risk of a disabled child and of miscarriages, as well as difficulty in conceiving. They could have started trying years ago. I also think that if the pregnancy happens the age gap will be longer than is ideal for the children (even if we're optimistic, it could well be over 6 years). However, those are secondary concerns, though worth mentioning.

Yes and no. The minute we bring another person into the world, we must also consider their lives. DP and I are both children of older parents, and we, in turn, became older parents. We both lost parents relatively young as a result which impacted significantly on how our lives panned out. Sure, one never knows what is around the corner -a healthy young mum can be hit by a bus, and a more mature parent can live on until a ripe old age, but we are statistically more likely to become ill and infirm the older we are. I had DC at 36 and 39 am very conscious of the fact that, despite the fact that I'm quite fit and relatively healthy, my DC have no memories of me at my 'peak', and I will most probably have less 'good years' with them than their peers will have with their younger parents.

Humanity would’ve died out in the last ice age if people stopped procreating because of global issues.

We are mammals, to some degree having offspring is a typically an innate desire whether you like it or not (or desire it or not). There is nothing inherently selfish about it.