Fertility and menopause after 40

[Entstoryench]

In my head I am in my mid twenties and I kind of feel shocked that I'm actually turning 40 soon.
I have 3 children, all of whom were planned and the youngest is under 1.

I was actually shocked I got pregnant so easily with the most recent baby as it was drummed into me that it's nigh on impossible to get pregnant after 35. This was the messaging I feel that I absorbed growing up and even in my thirties. It's not true though, as many women, including myself, can attest.

In my younger days I read all the magazine articles about avoiding pregnancy. If you're the same age as me you remember all the mags: Just17, More, Cosmo. I feel like I had a good understanding of my cycles and the likelihood of getting pregnant. I knew all the dos and don'ts.

Now I'm approaching 40 and my knowledge is kind of out of date. I feel that a lot of what I know is geared at girls and women entering or in the midst of their most fertile years.

I am still breastfeeding so haven't had a period since before I got pregnant last year but know to expect them to get further and further apart. At a certain stage they will just stop. There may be difficult symptoms which might go on for years. So I have a vague understanding of the menopause, but there is still a sense that I am most likely still fertile and may be for a few years yet.

I can just imagine lots of people rolling their eyes and thinking I'm stupid for feeling confused about this. I'm not stupid at all but I do find myself in an age bracket that I'm finding confusing. There was so much info for entering your fertile years, but not as much for exiting.
Waiting for the menopause in the next few years while still preventing pregnancy, even though my fertility is most likely decreasing...it just feels like a new chapter. Can anyone relate? I feel like it's the overlap of two life stages.

How did you transition from one stage to the next? At what point were you sure that pregnancy wasn't a risk or something that wasn't going to happen for you? Did you continue or start having babies into your 40s?

Do other people feel like I do?

I know 40 isn't a magic number where things suddenly change but it's my birthday soon and I've been thinking.

No. I was peri menopausal at 31. Tried for years for another including clomid and eventually ivf and nothing. Before I had tests done I kept missing periods and testing like mad thinking why is this not saying pregnant?? Gutted.

It’s interesting how you say you had it drummed into you about pregnancy being harder after 35 because the support groups I joined had a lot, and I mean a LOT of women in their late 30s and 40s who seemed oblivious to this. They all said things like they thought they had loads of time, you hear about women having kids nearer fifty etc and - you’re going to hate me for saying this - but a lot of us younger in the groups had feelings towards them along the lines of “you just left it too late” or “it was never your priority” etc while we felt we’d been robbed.

Anyway. Along came covid and vaccines and I got my period back regularly again, then it stopped and I thought oh well, that’s that done. Then my boobs got sore and the smell of pigshit at the farm was making me heave and I thought “hello, I’ve been here before”. Positive pregnancy test. Phoned the doctor then who was very assertive in her advice not to get my hopes up given my history and telling me that some female cancers can cause a positive pregnancy test instead. Shitting myself trying to decide do I treat this? Do I accept it and get my shit in order? Do I start recording messages for my kids? Sent for a scan and bloods to check what was happening and there was a heartbeat.

She’s 11 weeks now and I’m still sodding bleeding. To get another womb scan because I’ve got ‘calcification in my uterus’ whatever that is. I want another one. Maybe even two. Who knows? If I get offered another covid vaccine I think I’ll sprint there.

Wow @HighlandPony that's amazing! Congratulations! You thought you were staring the menopause and IVF failed and then you got pregnant naturally later on, is that right? I'm sorry about your uterus, and hope you can still expand your family if that's what you want. Do you think the vaccine kickstarted your cycle?

Sorry, how old are you now if you don't mind me asking?

I’m 36. So I’ve got an 8 year age gap between the last one and this one. I got tested at 31 after 4 years of trying and was told I was peri menopausal but I still didn’t accept it. Never used protection, tried clomid, I did ivf at 32, blew a lot of money on it.

I got my covid vaccine and like a lot of people it affected my period but I hadnt had one in maybe ten months so I got mine back you could say. I’m not one for wild vaccine theories but I can’t honestly see what else would have caused it. More stressed with lockdown, less money with less work in lockdown, bigger bills because everyone is in the house all day running electricity and making a mess not to mention homeschooling. That doesn’t sound like an ideal for getting pregnant even without menopause.

I was the same, had it "drummed" into me that after 35 it would be difficult and I was asked by everyone, even strangers why I didn't want children as clearly I had chosen my career. The honest truth was I hadn't met anyone to have babies with and I cried myself to sleep most nights thinking I really had left it too late. At the age of 39 I met my partner, told him I wanted/needed to be a mum and I got pregnant pretty much by just looking at him. I thought it would take years if at all. I count my blessings every day that I found it incredibly easy.
On the flip side, I have also witnessed three of my friends struggle beyond belief. Two of them took ten years to fall pregnant and the other has just been told it's now too late for her despite wanting them for a very long time. It's heartbreaking to watch. But, like you, I know absolutely nothing about the menopause apart from what I've see Davina talk about. Maybe I should do more research into it and that would be on me to do but I agree, it's rammed down your throat about avoiding pregnancy in magazines growing up, then overload of advice for falling pregnant and then nothing.

@HighlandPony that is just amazing. Thank you for sharing your story. Sounds like it was the vaccine, possibly!

@Sids81 yes, exactly. Pregnancy pregnancy pregnancy and then nothing.

I just spoke to my husband about how, while O don't want any more children, my mind does wander to 'if we had another, would it be a girl or boy? What would he or she look like? What if it was twins?' Etc. These are kind of daydreams that are rooted somewhere in the vague possibility that it could happen. Suddenly, I'm aware of the fact that soon, this won't be possible. This fertile phase of my life which started with my first period at around 12, will be over. I feel like I knew more about what to expect before I got my first menstrual cycle than I do now, about what happens when it all winds down. My mother had an early menopause and the chances are greater that I will too.

A good point that my husband raised, which I need to bring up here is my absolute gratitude for the children I have. My feelings are so much more complex than just wanting more kids in the future: we don't actually want any more children. It's more the ending of an era that I'm finding strange. I don't know what to expect.

When do you stop using contraception, for example? Is there a certain point where you assume you aren't fertile any more, that the odds are so low enough that you can stop bothering, or do most women wait until the menopause is well under way or their periods are slowing down to a certain degree.

I have no idea.

I’m 53 and stopped using contraception last year. I’m peri-menopausal. Not had a period for six months. I expected to be able to give birth into my 40s because when I was young, plenty of women did. Oddly enough, talking to a very elderly woman recently about this and she was saying about how when she was a child most families were big and the mums were well into their 40s, including her own - think she said she was 47 when she had her last. I never really gave menopause much of a thought other than realising it would happen at some point!

The idea of a cliff edge at 35 for the average woman is out of date--this assumption was based on old-fashioned data from previous centuries, when women's reproductive systems aged faster.

On average, modern women stop being able to get pregnant naturally at about 41, and go through the menopause about 10 years later.

However, that's just average. You could be one of the women who gets pregnant naturally many years from now. It happens. It's happened in my social circle several times. Do you want any more children? You sound unsure. If you're pretty sure you don't, get an implant or talk to your husband about a vasectomy. Why take the risk if you don't want any more?

If you're curious about what age you will go through the menopause, you could consider getting your FSH and AMH levels checked out, though that tends to give only a very rough idea.

This is exactly the information I wanted. Thank you!

Our official party line is that we don't want any more children. I however keep imagining a 4th baby but its purely a 'heart' thing and not a 'head' thing. We have made a decision to stop for logistical reasons but I would keep having babies until I physically couldn't anymore. My husband I very happy to stop at 3, and he is right. But if I did get pregnant again, I certainly wouldn't be devastated.

My husband doesn't want a vasectomy and I don't want hormonal contraception so we use condoms. I'm also breastfeeding around the flipping clock, night and day and haven't had my period yet so think the chances would be slim.

As I am getting older I'm having a lot of emotions about my fertile years coming to an end, and not being sure how it all works was making me feel worse. Knowledge is power and all that.

Thanks again!

I had 3 of my kids between 35-40 very quickly and easy pregnancies. Perimenapausal late 40s and last period at 50. The last 2 years of my periods were all over the place whereas before they had been regular as clockwork and I could feel ovulation. Despite having infrequent periods during 2 years before menopause, they were light and I didn't have any ovulation symptoms. I could just tell that things had changed.

I'm 52 now and other than no periods I don't have any of the menopausal symptoms like hot flushes or brain food etc that many women suffer from, or don't have it yet. I think it helps that I split from my ex so my life is a lot happier now.

Brain *fog

The advice is to stop using contraception a year after your last period if you are over 50, and 2 years after it if you are under 50.

In the perimenopause, your cycle may go haywire, you may have very long periods, you may have periods every couple of weeks, then nothing for months. Not necessarily periods getting further and further apart until they stop.

40 was always my personal cut-off. As it turned out I had DS at nearly 35, and then we decided we were done.
I’ve been peri-menopausal since I was 40 due to cancer treatment. DH had a vasectomy when I asked him to.

I'm 45 and had DC2 12 weeks ago (naturally conceived, married relatively late in life and took years to conceive both). Before DC2 a fertility Dr said that I had a 1-2% chance of conceiving. I got lucky. Ultimately if you still have periods pregnancy is possible (if unlikely) so assume that you can esp if you want to avoid it. I too am finding it a strange time knowing that my fertility will soon be gone, what to expect and figuring out how to deal with it and how I see myself and my life I in that context I guess. I was never taught anything about menopause so have had to Google for everything. How reliable Dr Google is though...

I have an unusual story. Got pregnant with my daughter at 33 first cycle. Assumed it would be easy enough to have a 2nd. Not a whisper. Had a chemical pregnancy or two. After a few years I got tests and nothing major was wrong with me or DH. By the time I reached 39, I more or less accepted that it wasn't going to happen. Then in September just gone I got pregnant. I'm 42 in 3 weeks and 16 weeks pregnant. Have no idea why it didn't happen for 8 years or why it's happening now. Never had closed or any fertility treatment.

Clomid *

I wish my periods were getting further apart but in the last year I’ve averaged 24 day cycles with the particular highlight being an 18 day one followed by a 31 day one and after a fairly average 28 dayer I’m currently on my 10th day of bleeding. Peri menopause can quite frankly go to hell!!

it took 18 months and one miscarriage before conceiving my first, at the age of 33. 12 months and 2 miscarriages before conceiving my second at 36. Fell pregnant unplanned 3 months short of 40, only the second time I had sex in 18 months. And had another unplanned pregnancy at 43. Anecdotes are not data but don’t come off contraception just yet!

I can totally relate! I went from extended breastfeeding of my second child at 39 to peri symptoms from around 41 onwards. I'm 44 now. My cycle never got going again from the birth to now and I've barely had a period in all that time.

So I had to come to accept it wasn't the breastfeeding that was messing with my cycle but the arrival of a whole new stage of life, and yes had to mourn the childbearing years which was strange with a toddler in tow, felt a bit freakish really. Can't imagine I would have any chance of one last pregnancy now.

Hi @Entstoryench i'm 41 yrs old and just had my first baby. I always wanted 3 kids but i didn't meet the right person till really late in life. In my head i also feel like i'm still in my 20's.
I have no thoughts about menopause but i think it will be something that naturally happens and i will have to accept it.

DM never made a secret of her early menopause at 33 to DSis or I, and really ramped up this conversation when I was about 30 (got married at 29), I had my DC at 37 and 40, bath conceived first cycle, and no age-related issues with either pregnancy or birth. I had a overwhelming feeling of being "done" with 2 DC; dh had a vasectomy, after dc2 was born. Having had HG and emcs with both babies I was slightly scared of further pregnancies. I don't think I really relaxed until I was 50.

I had my kids easily between 37 and 41. Currently 45 with zero peri/menopause symptoms. I'm presuming peri but still being careful because many of my relatives had babies well into their 40s. Pregnancy doesn't agree with me, sickness (both), emergency csections, psychosis (dc1) and pnd (both) so part of me is looking forward to knowing it's no longer possible but also I think tinged with sadness. That said thinking about my amazing grandmother I think there will be benefits transitioning to "crone". Although I currently have great skin...I'm shallowly terrified it's just going to age 100 years overnight once menopause hits.