To have a baby at 45?

[Hope88]

I am thinking about having another child. But I would like to have a bigger gap between children which means I would be getting near 45. If it all goes well. Do you think it's selfish to have a child at 45? I just think I would be a better mother if I wait opposed to rushing into it and being really stressed out. Your thoughts please.

It really is horses for course but there does seem to be a general desire to ignore teh laws of averages etc, which say that for a lot of people, 55- 60 plus does really signify a general slowing down etc and many will have chronic low level ill health, whihc will make life harder with youngish kids. In my work, I see a lot of medical notes and I wa surprised when I was yuonger just how many "middle aged" people complain of low level problems with backs, tiredness ,stress etc. Depends on how much OP wants it, if she wants it, she shuold do it sooner rather than later

sorry, OP, for the diversion, but I'm a bit baffled by some of the comments on this thread...

I thort that MILF was an acronym for "Mum I'd Like to Fuck"

if that's the case, then the statement "I am a milf" means "I'm a mum and I'd like to fuck myself"

please could all self professed MILFs on this thread clarify as to whether they'd like to fuck themselves, or that the general public would like to fuck them (MTGPWLTF)

tia

It's not about controlling fertility AislingOrla. Taking IVF etc totally out of the equation, there is a vast difference between the fertility of different women. I got pregnant TWICE with contraceptives being used in both cases. In the case of my only planned pregnancy, I got pregnant in the same cycle that we made the decision to try, ie two days after having the conversation. I have no doubt in my mind that if I were to try for a child at 45, there would be a strong chance of my getting pregnant. That's why women are advised that contraception is necessary til after the menopause, because for every woman whose fertility drops to nothing at 40, there is another woman who'll be fertile until she stops having periods. Nature has dictated this. You're speaking as though it absolutely never happens, it clearly does happen. Nobody is being defensive about it, it's a fact of life.

There is an even more interesting feature in the New Yorker

and there's this study in the Evening Standard

Among wealthy westerners 40-something isn't even that old for a mum anymore...

helltotheno exactly my point

Spring, AF called me a MILF, I just went along with it!

well i dont think there is anything wrong with having a baby at 45, i would just be very wary of making the decision to postpone ttc and then to find out that you couldnt get preg, if you wouldnt really mind not having another baby then that fine, but if its really important to you, then i would just get on with it, purely from the biological point of view that it is generally harder to concieve and unfortunately you are more likely to have problems if you leave it till your older :(

but we cant always plan these things, we dotn know how life will pan out, i was lucky enough to meet my dp at uni and we had our first when i was 20 (preg at 19) i am now 32 and we have been lucky enough to have 5 gorgeous healthy children, that is us done now tho! but i feel very lucky to have my family and as such i have just signed up to donate eggs so that i can hopefully give someone else the chance of having the joy that i have from my children, they asked me when i registered if i would mind my eggs going to an 'older' lady, ie in her early forties and i said no, not at all! who am i to be judge and jury on something like that, i would have no idea why she is in the situation of needing an egg donor, i am just grateful that i got lucky and had my own very easily and i simply feel that as i got lucky and i dont need my eggs anymore, why not give a few of them to someone who does?

sorry gone off on a ramble there, but ultimately do what makes you feel happy op, if you are happy to wait but run the risk of not having another (but wont ultimately mind) then fine, if however you REALLY want another i would get on with it, just because of biology and the fact that you are running the risk of more problems if you leave it :)

What a lively discussion! Thank you very much for all your replies, lovely ladies.
I need to finish reading them before I can comment. My DC got ill last night so I could not really follow this thread properly.
But just one thing. As I read somewhere the average age in 1950's was around 60 years. I am sure people had children at 30 which would be the same like having a child at 45 nowadays with the average age being around 80. Also 25% of children being born this year are expected to live til 100. Surely this means that having children after 40 will be more and more common.
I will be back :)

Well if you do a google search for MILF it just comes up with lots of granny porn.

What a lovely thing to do 4madboys :)

In answer to another posters questions-yes I meant in the main that it was biologically better for both the mother and the child to have them at an earlier age.

However I do think we need to think of the responsibility we may be putting on our children in the future. Older parents are more likely to health issues-no point trying to deny that-and even if you dont and live to a good age you are still probably going to have to rely on your dcs at some point-dcs who might then have gcs of there own whom they are expected to also help with.

I would love to have another child but dh is 10 years older than I and thinks he is too old. I know he regrets waiting until he was older to have kids as he worrries that wont be fit enough to cope when they are older.

!

Silly?

Unpleasant?
Deleted?

aisling-I can see that you were only trying to wind people up. I do think you raise a good point though-we dont control our fertility-there is a reason why women go through the menopause when they do-and for all the women in their 40's on here saying how easy they found it to get pregnant, there are many who dont find it so easy.

I for one am extremely fertile-medical profession told me so-but I have a problem carrying babies to term. If I had waited until I was late 30's/early 40's then I would probably not have been able to have kids as was a long road.

My parents had my little brother aged 47 and 50! He was an 'accident', but a very welcome one. However, this has not been without issues. He has special needs that will likely mean that he will never be able to live independently and I know that my parents are very concerned about what will happen to him when they pass away. Luckily, in my parent's case they have me to look after him when that time comes and I have happily committed myself to that.

I wish the OP luck, but I do think that this is a scenario you should consider before you go ahead.

thanks cristina :) i just hope it works for whoever gets my eggs, i wont know who gets them but i will be told if a baby is born, which would be absolutely lovely to know that someone has got that precious gift of a child :)

Doh, I know what the thread is about Aisling, but had never heard the term before.

I know someone said it earlier, but you really aren't half as witty as you think you are.

Having just come back from seeing my 45 yr old friend and her new (5th) baby, go for it!
Her children range from newborn to 23 and she couldn't be any happier!

4madboys - do you feel any responsibility towards those eggs - like worrying about whether the children they produce will have good parents? It's something I've considered but I have problems disassociating myself from the baby they will be iyswim...

Slight misconception there OP. life expectancy has of course increased significantly over the last 50 years but a great deal of that is down to reduced infant mortality and children no longer dying of diptheria etc - one infant who doesn't die aged 6 months has a much larger effect on the population averages than a handful of grannies dying aged 80 instead of 75, and the childhood mortality portion of the improvement is irrelevant to our current discussion.

The idea that has been bandied around by a few in this thread that older mums will be too tired to do anything in their sixties when their kids leave home is a bit of an assumption. That might have been the case 20 or 30 years ago but 60 odd is nothing these days. You can't assume your health will be great but pleny of people bags of energy still at that age too.

My Dad (65) is all over the place travelling and similar, husbands Dad ran a half marathon the other day (70 next birthday!).

4madboys - good for you! You have made me feel guilty because after my second I was 32 and mulled over donating eggs but I mulled too long and I am now too old for them to be accepted which is a shame.

so for those who think it is so terrible to have a child in your 40s and to raise teenagers into your late 50s - is it better if it's your fourth or fifth or sixth child, and you also have much older ones? If you want a large family and don't want crazy short age differences, that is the reality. Of all the large families I know, the first child was born to mum in her early 20s and last to mum by then in her late 30s/early 40s. So should that same mum be worried about being mistaken for a grandparent, when at the same time she might be mistaken practically for a sister to her eldest daughter?

BabyDubs, When I referred to your post specifically, I wasn't criticising your choice to do it early I was commenting on your comment about feeling your parents were older parents in their early 30s. I was just pointing out that my kids wouldn't feel that because every other set of parents are about the same age or older. I'm not sure they know any other kids whose parents had them in their 20s so to them, parents my age are the norm.

And whilst nobody on this thread has disputed the fact that physically a woman's body is more fertile at 25, that's not to say it's the best time either emotionally or financially. Waiting until 45 isn't ideal in terms of fertility but peoples lives don't work out perfectly and for many, late 30s, early 40s is the first time they feel ready to do it.

And maybe it's because I'm an old fogey but I'm perfectly happy just to be a 'Mother that her own husband wants to fuck' if that's ok!

I also work with a lot of women in their thirties (financially stable and in committed relationships) who say they are not 'ready' to have a baby. It is largely because of current trends that encourages this, 30 is the new 20, 40 is the new 30, etc.
You may feel young at 40 but your eggs are not.

kenobi i am donating my eggs through a charity, they have a veting process, in conjunction with the hospitals (they use kings of london and st thomas') and i trust them totally in that if they think the couple or single woman or couple of women etc are fine to be parents then that is fine by me.

the child will be able to contact me once they are 18 if they wish and i am happy with that. i did feel a bit like you but ultimately its a ball of genetic material, it wont be 'my' child, like my 5 are, in that i made them with MY partner and we have raised them.

the women who get my eggs, will carry them for 9months and give birth to them etc so they will be growing a baby, it is just that they need that bit of genetic material to help them do so. does that make sense?