childless at 40

[blondie1971]

AIBU when i get upset to read all the newspaper reports about how women are selfish and not having kids, when most of the chaps i have been out with have had kids from previous relationships, and despite being great dads and loving their kids, have split from their partners, and refuse to have any other children - and suddenly i find myself at the age where i have missed out because i didnt think i could crack it as a single mum (as i know from friends how bloody hard it is) but always believed i would meet someone that did want kids before i got too old

Well I did put my career first (because I wanted to earn more money and I thought having children would be detrimental to that) and I chose to wait until my late 30's to have my first child. I am now pregnant again at 40. So I am the epitome of the selfish woman the misogynistic newspapers love to hate.

However, when I was younger, none of the men I went out with (despite most of them being a fair few years older than me) had any interest in having children. I fail to see how women are any more "selfish" than men for not having or delaying having children.

OP you definitely aren't selfish. And even if you were - you are allowed to be - despite all beliefs to the contrary that women should put everyone elses needs first .

Good Luck!

from WOD earlier

"Perhaps part of the whole issue is that men are now expected to contribute in a meaningful way to child rearing and that scares them."

sorry I don't agree with that at all. I think there are plenty of decent men out there, who, like similiar women, just haven't met the right partner to have children with.

sometimes its all just down to luck, op, I hope you get lucky soon and either decide to go it alone or meet a decent guy in time, whichever way it happens, or not, good luck with your decision

At 40, I'd definitely not wait anymore for a partner.

Maybe at 35, but not at 40.

thanks again all for being so kind and interesting and supportive

family close in spirit but a long way away in distance, so couldnt help out

also been reading up on pcos (diagnosed at 25) and you dont tend to have the right amount of progesterone to sustain pregnancy apparently - i misscarried at 25, i think that combined with my age makes me having a kid a no brainer

but your comments and posts have made me feel so much better, i will be a great auntie (to brother sister cousins kids as i am always) and a not related "auntie" to my mates kids and most importantly - stop beating myself up and realise this isnt meant to be for me - i think i would find fostering and adoption too hard - but thanks to all your comments, i know i am now not alone in feeling bad and that has made me feel so much better - thank you - i always thought mumsnet was only for mums, now i know it is for every female - thank you so much

Bestnameever is SOOO right!

BestNameEver Mon 02-May-11 20:04:52
Oh my dear you are not alone in HATING those articles (misogynist tripe dressed up as sociology).
So it is womens fault that we are now encouraged, allowed, required to go out get a good education and pay our way in the world. Its womens fault that we want things to be right before we have children.
Its womens fault that the feckless men we meet in out twenties only want a carefree time.
Its womens fault that they selfishly work away quietly contributing to society, and trying to meet genuine men who are happy to get settled with a family.
All womens fault.
Nothing to do with society putting massive expectations on women.
Nothing to do with men's reluctance to become responsible family men, and society's glorifying of that.
All our fault.**

The previous generations fault for telling us we could have it all .... we cant .... you make your choices ...... and if you want to slut about in your 20's and let every decent man escape you - don;t expect to suddenly let your perished eggs roam and hopefuly produce a child to assauge your maternal needs

YADNBU.

I wondered whether it was just me wondering where all the career hungry child-hating women in their 20s and 30s were. Without exception, all of my female friends with babies have waited YEARS (between 5 and 15 years over their 20s to their mid or late 30s) for their OHs to be ready to have babies. Not one would have refused to compromise their career to have tried for babies YEARs before they actually did. And it's so cruel. You end up in a dilemma - dump the man and risk waiting years to find another - and when you do start the waiting time with him or stick with what you've got and hope he comes round.

And it's not the done thing to ask WHEN men want kids - Oh no, that's tantermount to bunny-boiling. We're socialised into playing it so cool we waste the most fertile years of our lives. Our dear male counterparts on the other hand are socialised to think settling down and having a family is weak, it's giving up your freedom and the end of your fabulously free youth.

If you'd like to meet a bloke and settle down I (genuinely) highly recommend internet dating (as others have referred to in the thread). I've been to 3 weddings of friends who met on dating websites and a 4th who are engaged. Without doubt they've all met their perfect other halves.

You are finding peace with your situation which is good, but you could still meet someone and have time to conceive or what about the donor insemination route? Your PCOS can be helped with medication. Bringing up DD without my partner would be hard, but not having her at all would be harder. If there is a desire within you to have a baby you can still pursue it.

tried to research the DI route but was put off by horror stories, unchecked sperm, etc, and really feel i would need support (even though i know you cant guarantee the dad sticking around at all).

am scared that even with internet dating, whilst you can weed out the ones who arent interested, many will say "maybe" when they mean no, and that even through dating, it will take a long time before i am in a relationship and happy to have the baby chat - am 40 now - the older i get, the less chance. time most certainly not on my side.

hate the fact i wasted so many years thinking "if it happens it happens" but really sticking my head in the sand or spending years with someone i knew wouldnt ever have more kids, then finally coming to the realisation it probably wont happen and i wasnt quite as nonchalent about it as i liked to make out (my choice for not wanting to come across as you say, like a bunny boiler)

i feel i have let myself down and wish i genuinely felt as ok as i pretended to in my last post

If you don't feel ok about it then look hard at your options. Imagine yourself in 10 years time, how would you feel if you still hadn't had a child?

I am a single mum who was 40 when I got pregnant.
I and my ds are both incredibly happy and stressfree. It doesn't have to be hard.
I'm also going to foster as I feel I've at last found what I am meant to do, which is living on my own, with lots of children.

I thought that if you get the sperm from a clinic it is all checked properly?

The industry is very heavily regulated in the UK so I suspect stories of unchecked sperm are urban myths to be honest.

As I said earlier, I do not regret for one moment having a child on my own. I know I would have regretted it forever if I hadn't even tried

Brutally to the point troisgarcons :)

This is a thread full of posters blaming men for womens choices.

Good post WriterofDreams

Personally I fell pg at college in my teens and got a lot of criticism for not terminating as I split from the father, but at this stage I definitely feel I made the better choice. I didn't have much of a career until I hit my 30s and I often felt isolated and restricted in my 20s but at the end of it all I have my DS and my career has caught up, while the biological clock is something that doesn't wait.

Many of my friends are in their 40s now and have had to face up to childlessness. I think that in most cases, it was down to their own choices to some extent or another - staying with the wrong men, giving their relationships a low priority, choosing not to seek help for fertility issues or terminations. They all had their own reasons for their choices but at the end of the day, they were never forced to live their lives in that way.

wow babies at 40 :)

YADNBU, I was in your shoes at 40 & had accepted that even though I had never really ruled out having kids, like you didn't feel the urge so strongly as to want to go it alone & actually make that choice to be a single Mum & also TBH I was quite happy on my own & very enjoyed my career, so I suppose I was quite happy just to go with the flow - so to speak- though in my case my exes were mostly just big kids themselves & not already Dads

Weirdly though, by 41 I was pregnant & getting married - to a wonderful Man that I'd known as a good friend for over 20 years, but had briefly lost contact with - weird how life can turn out sometimes - even when you least expect it :)

I do think though, in a subconscious way we do play a part in that choice ourselves, simply by choosing the wrong men - I look back on it, & realise, that in my case, I probably just wasn't ready for the big commitment - even though, I thought I did IYSWIM - & in balance - DH had similar problems with Women

You know what's interesting? In many relationships women end up being single mothers anyway! I have a great husband (won the husband lottery I think) but it is really me who does everything. this is because he has his own business (he's not a slack arse at all) and is older so does find it hard to be as helpful as I'd perhaps like.

If I was you, I'd have a go at having a child. Say to yourself, I'll give it eg 2 or three years and explore different options. At the same time, make sure that you develop yourself in other ways eg uni course, travel, etc so that you're not relying purely on motherhood to fulfil you.

Wishing you lots of luck on your journey wherever it may take you (Jeeze, that sounds like a hallmark card- yuck!- but you know what I mean).

My husband and I are both 27 now and were 23 when we had our daughter, but even at my young age I wouldnt of liked having a baby without my husband. It must be tiring if you dont have anyone helping with the night feeds and giving you lots of breaks. I dont think I would ever choose to do it without a man on purpose.

op, if it helps at all i feel i have wasted vast tracts of my life.

no-body makes all the right decisions all the time. if i were you i would really think hard about my next move. from your posts it sound like you really do want a child. that's a feeling that doesn't tend to go away.

i think you should try. good luck.

I dont think I would ever choose to do it without a man on purpose.

I dunno, given the abysmal standard of men discussed on the Relationships thread, I think I would be happier going it alone .

[No offence to all those men who are genuinely nice]

"You know what's interesting? In many relationships women end up being single mothers anyway!" - JackyJax

And I suspect this is a small part of the problem. In our progressive society the family unit is being torn down. Its now far too simple for people to split and have the state bring up their children. Or just to go it alone - this thread is littered with 'find a donor' comments and it really is that easy a decision.

Of course men are going to be cautious about kids if they know their partner could walk out at any time and take them away.

My MIL had her one and only child aged 42. She was and I think has always remained single. (DH reckons too many men disappointed her in the past so she got fed up and decided to stop trying to date).

DH had a wonderful childhood and is very close to his mum. I don't know how hard she found it (she worked full time since his birth) but I know that she is extremely happy to be his mother (she adores him) and is over the moon at becoming a grandmother soon.

I won't ever ask her of course, but I think I can guarantee that she did not regret her decision.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I was a late starter myself. I know exactly how you feel.

I was 37 when I married and 38 when I had my son. I'm now 48 and, despite his difficulties (he has high functioning autism) I know how very very lucky I am, to have had him at all.

I spent a good part of my 30's as a single woman. Don't get me wrong, I was never without a "date" if I wanted one but I wouldn't have gotten involved with any of the men I met at that time because many of them were, as you say, second time around, wanted a relationship (not marriage....they'd just escaped one of those!) and certainly no more children to add to the ones they were paying maintenance for.

With hindsight, I wish I'd done it all earlier say, in my late twenties but, that's life, or at least, that was MY life. The men I met then were not trustworthy and hence, I spent a long time just not doing relationships.

YANBU. And women at 40+ DO have healthy babies.

it isn't only women who find themselves in this situation
My brother didn't meet anyone until it was too late for him to have a child. He has always regretted that.

Tricky subject really. I think things have changed massively since my parents generation where the norm was marriage at an early age followed by kids.

The OP is saying that she finds it upsetting to read how women are selfish for not wanting kids, and I have to say there are a fair amount of comments in this thread saying exactly the same thing about men.

As a man I can understand that a guy who has kids from a previous relationship may not want to have more with a new partner. I certainly wouldn't because I question whether I could support more. But then I wouldn't get involved with a woman now who wanted kids as it's unfair to her.

From a man's perspective, modern life involves me ( as well as women ) being bombarded with images of impossible women. My drive to work takes me past several massive billboards with women in their underwear ( M&S ) . It's all around and I think as well as causing problems in terms of women's self image it causes as much a problem to men in their image of women in general. I guess there is no revelation there.

And I think that causes problems in the context of starting a relationship that is clearly going to involve a new family with older women. I know that sounds harsh but I think that's a reality.

I don't think the OP is being unreasonable. But I think we're all saturated by the 'ideal' , men are looking for an impossible woman and women are looking for the impossible man. Time ticks on, men decide they're happy playing with sports cars and FHM magazine and women ( some ) end up childless in their 40's.

For the record, my XP became pregnant at 41, I was 40 but neither of us planned it. Just the sort of 'recklessness' and passion that plagues teenagers except we were adults in our early 40's.

I had no plans for children, but I'm delighted to be a dad.