Baby at 46

[TwittyMcTwitterson]

My lovely mum is going for fertility checks tomorrow to see how difficult it will be to conceive. At 46, she's not receiving that much positive feedback. She always wanted a big family and only had me. One of her biggest regrets.

I'm fairly certain it's not empty nest syndrome as I've lived away for 9 years now. I'm 26 and have a DD myself of 2.5 or a midlife crisis as, like I say, she has always wanted this and hasn't just gone and bought a Porsche

She's not the healthiest 46 yr old. Diets not great, smokes like the proverbial chimney, don't think she'd quit but would cut down but that's another thread has around a glass or more of wine a night. Her life is set up very much as a 46 year old. I don't imagine a baby would fit in easily. She's also self employed and recently set up her own business. She's also not in the stablest of relationships.

Most people have said about tiredness and not realising how knackering it is. However, I said that when I was 24. Her friends who had children at 38 and 40.ish have not been as supportive as you'd think.

Anyway, I'm basically asking if anyone has any constructive advice for her. She's fed up of people putting her down and dismissing it as a fanciful idea. Is it as bad as they say or should she happily go ahead?

Thanks in advance

If she keeps pushing you to donate eggs when you've already said no... well, I don't think I could keep a relationship with her TBH.

She won't. I'm pretty forceful at times. I'm hoping she'll drop it quickly.

Her age isn't a factor. Her lifestyle is:
She's unhealthy for her age.
She's had two recent miscarriages.

I think you should support your mother's decision, but only after she's taken steps to procure as healthy a pregnancy as possible. I'd say the same for someone of any age.
The smoking, drinking and previous recent miscarriages will have a significant effect on her chances of conceiving.

I speak as a sympathetic 46 year old who would love a last baby and don't consider I'm 'too old', but do consider my health, my finances, and more significantly the fact my current partner is against the idea. So my opinion has developed from that.

Nature determines our childbearing years. If we can still conceive over 50, then that's the natural order of things. The rest is cerebral.

Havent read all the thread tbh and had last baby at 41. However I think your DM is living in cloud cuckoo land. Some people shut their eyes and ears and pick on on one person someone in the world that had a baby at 50 plus and says 'why cant that be me'.

A close relative chose one rubbish man after another, no one forced her into it. She just chose unwisely. At 37 she met the 'man of her dreams' and planned the wedding for a year later. I wish now I had suggested that she get her fetility tested. I didnt. She eventually found she was going through an early menopause. She went for donor eggs outside of the UK. She had the money to do this. Your DM will not get any NHS support and tbh neither should she.

If she really wants a baby she should get in a stable relationship. Her choice. She should stop smoking (her choice again) and think about her options (and you arent one of them!)

She has a habit of blaming everyone else. My dad for not wanting more. The man after him for messing her about she spent 6/7 with him. 2/3 years in she found out he had a girlfriend he was living with. He told her he was getting himself back on his feet after a divorce and lived in a static caravan at a holiday home but that was where he took her. Then he persuaded her he had left OW, each time she discovered he hadn't. The last six months he said she had cancer so he could leave her. My mum walked away so many times but he dragged her back with lies and false promises. She never knew he was seeing this woman the whole time. Each time he said it was over. She'd never take another woman's man.

She then met another man who swore he would give her a baby. He moved in, got a roof over his head, she bought him an old freelander but still 2.5k and he then swore he never said that and systematically turned almost all of her friends against her. They know he was lying now but not the point. That's 2 years wasted and now she's back with the original who seems to be filling her with more promises. I can't imagine they're genuine.

She's continuously blaming these men as if she didn't have a choice to leave them. She did. We must be held accountable for our own choices and actions.

I know someone exactly like this. In the UK we choose our partners. You wouldnt think so by some of the threads on MN's. My relative blames everyone for her terrible choice in men. Time and time again she makes the same old mistakes - and this is not some teenager. This is a women in her 30's.

Everlong So, so sorry for your loss.

Oh dear, I do feel for you. I hope you don't feel guilty or seriously pressurised to donate to your mum. Yanbu at all. I did say earlier it was up to your mum and I stand by that, despite that I wouldn't do it myself, but putting pressure on you to donate, that's another thing entirely.

I've

LeadingToGadeBank - how rude. 2 MCs is a) not a lifestyle choice and b) no indicator that you are unfit to be a parent.

you do have your own life to lead too op you know.

Oh dear OP, reading through the rest of the posts and after raising my flag for 'older mothers' it seems the situation is much more complicated. Stand your ground and guard your eggs, refuse to accept any guilt if its directed towards you. Maybe for your mother its less about the baby and more about the desperation / last chance grab for the possibilities she thought she'd have but realises she has let slip away. (Through her own - now in hindsight misguided choices). As you say 'We must be held accountable for our own choices and actions'. Harsh as it might sound it is true but is probably still very hard to accept.

After the failure of a long term relationship that I stayed in for the promise of children and long before I fell pregnant, I'd say I grieved almost annually for the child I assumed I'd never have. I knew it had been my decision to stay, so my mistake. I wasn't in another relationship for some time (major trust issues to contend with!) and repeatedly told myself it was too late. That I just had to accept it, I'd never have a baby/family. But the letting go of the hope was definitely a kind of grieving. Maybe made worse because I'd let myself be talked into staying in the relationship and so lost the possibility of a few more years of TTC. Of course I can't know if thats what your mother is feeling, but she has you and a grand daughter to be proud of. Maybe she just needs a final shot at this dream she's always had. And if it doesn't come through, then a little help and support to let that hope finally go. You sound very level headed about it all and concerned for her. I hope it works out well for you all whatever happens.
x

I have read most of the comments and so won't rehash all of them. I think it is worth pointing out though that even if she has another baby she still won't have a big family. She will essentially have another only child (in practical terms if not strictly true) and will not have a home full of happy bouncing babies causing chaos. I wonder if it is about wanting love and security form a baby rather than from a man (which has shown to have been lacking). I get that. I am not 46 but I know the feeling

Had my ds at 45 naturally with no problems. I was very fit though which helped. I've not found it any more tiring or challenging than any of the other mothers at school who are all at least 10 years younger. I would have liked another child but bounced straight into menopause and didn't want to go down the assisted route as I felt it was selfish to add to my family when so many are desperate for a first baby.

Sad to read so many posts from people suggesting that women in their 50s and 60s are physically incapable of raising children and likely to die at any moment. My ds will have graduated before I reach retirement age - just how many people do these posters know who go straight from retiring from work to living in a nursing home?

My grandmother kept her pipe, she was an Indian, and flask of whisky in her great apron.

Still managed to conceive her last of 6 at 47 and give birth to him at home (it was after the war, and some tried to convince her to go to hospital to have him. Why? she asked, as she'd had all the rest at home) over the same tub she'd born the other 4 in (the girl, the one she had at 16, died of Spanish Flu at 2 years of age). She was a great, fat woman, LOL. She remarried at 30, after her first husband and that child had died of that flu when she was 18, and had 4 more before that boy at 47, the 5th one before when she was 39.

It can happen.

Not usually, it was certainly not planned in her case.

But it can certainly happen. Abortion was illegal then, as if she would ever countenance it, she was a devout Roman Catholic.

Her son was born healthy and strong, became a professor of anaesthesiology, still working and loving it, as is his wife, several years younger, a nurse.

He is 13 years younger than my father, who is 77.

Thumbwitch

You must quote where I have written they are a 'lifestyle choice' and render someone 'unfit' to be a mother. Because I cannot see that in either text or intent.

Oh I see. The positioning of the sentence mentioning the MCs suggests they are inclusive of the unhealthy lifestyle. My apologies for the typo.

That's ok

I think you are being a bit insensitive to her feelings , as a young woman with no such fertility concerns, to be honest.

Being 46 just creeps up on you and you feel mentally the same as anyone younger..I would imagine.

It can be just as real an urge to have a child as at a younger age..and difficult to accept it might not be straightforward.

You should support her all the way and be a bit more empathetic.

I think "disabilities" would also be a far nicer word to use than "abnormalities" btw.

Just reading lots of people throwing that lovely word around.

I'm 46, with three DC, last one at 44. I'm knackered and its so expensive but even so. .... Sometimes I want another.

Whatever is realistic, please recognise that her feelings and wants are perfectly normal. It's probably neither realistic nor a good idea, but she still needs support to work those feelings through.

Thanks guys. I'm going to go up and see her this weekend and give her lots of time with my DD.

This is how much of a prick her DP is. He couldn't stay over at her last night as he had something to do. When I said go over after, he pretended not to hear me. She's not heard from him at all.

I text him as he's lending me money for a new car (only three hundred and to be honest, I'm thinking of being an absolute butch n not paying it back and giving him a black eye. That's the child in me) and he replied to me but couldn't to her. My partner said if she had boys men wouldn't do this to her.

It seems fairly common for pre menopausal women to consider having another child. Being in my 40's, I know lots of women who consider this. It is because it is literally your last chance. And maybe changing hormones play a part? But most decide against this.

Remember of course in the past, that mothering was physically easier than now. Kids played outside most of the day and were independent way earlier with many starting full time work at 14 years of age. So mothering in the past was a very different proposition to now. If we still brought kids up in that way and thought it was right, I would have had a child in my mid 40's if I could have.