To ask why people delay TTCing until later on in life?

[MissPollyHadADolly19]

Just that really, curious as to why some women wait until late 30s/40s to TTC for their 1st. It's become more and more common recently and I can't help but feel sad when people I know who have waited until the end of their "biological clock" and have no luck obviously I wouldn't ask them outright hence asking here.

I didn't meet my DH until 35 and didn't think we wanted children when we first met. Now pg with DC1 aged nearly 41 and 46.
We had no trouble TTC though.

I worked in a Maternity hospital and often had the experience of women in their late 30's early 40's sitting there with a baby in their arms that they thought they would never have.Each and very one said that it was difficult to find a partner willing to commit to having a child .Things have changed so much in the last twenty years in that respect.I know a lot of men who did not want to have kids till their 40's and in most cases their partners are much younger. Its difficult.

I can't afford a child (I'm 35) so unlikely to have any

I find it intriguing too, but for different reasons.
As part of my degree in 2015 I did a case study that showed there was a 26% rise in children being born with disabilities within the past decade, and the only correlations were that they were born to older parents, and higher income families.
There was also a 30% increase in the number of people needing IVF, and a 60% increase in women freezing their eggs. But the overall birth rate is declining.
Biologically, the optimal age for a successful and healthy egg is 24 for a woman and 26 for a mans sperm.

I find it fascinating.

On a personal level, I was married at 20, had 2 children in my early 20s and then 2 in my late 30s. I don’t really see much difference - we still travelled, had holidays and a social life.

I met my dh when I was 23. I had my first D.C. When I was 39 and tbh, I felt it was a bit soon. Still had loads of other things I wanted to do! I do réalisé now how lucky I was. But I was not at all ready to have children before.

I look like my DCs sister,

sure you do.

YABU

Too many variables.

Because young men don’t want to have children. So who with are young women supposed to have their children with?

My first husband kept putting it off and would have been a terrible father anyway. By the time we divorced and met current DH I was 36. I had DS at 39 and DD at 41. DS took a bit of medical intervention (not IVF thankfully) and DD was a happy accident. We were going to try again in a bit and we had one of those middle of the night moments that did the trick.

I can't afford to. I was made redundant a while ago and struggled to find work for a while. I'm now on a fixed term contract hoping to go permanent soon. If that happens I'll immediately qualify for maternity but I haven't qualified for the past 18 months and couldn't survive without it so it just couldn't happen. I used my redundancy package to buy a house, I know I'm not permanently employed but the mortgage is so much cheaper than rent so I'm in a much better place now. Next - I don't want to have children without being married so there's that expense as well as waiting for my DP to be ready. He sees no issue in waiting for a bit and I'm constantly worried that my fertility is going to drop as he ums and ahs. We both earn the same amount roughly so I'm not in any financial danger currently and would probably share leave so maybe I need to consider how important marriage is to me before children. Logically though, it's not going to be any cheaper later on. It's the cost that's putting my dp off I think and also him that would prefer a more costly option as he has a large & more traditional family.

I'm terribly sad and frustrated about the whole situation, I long to be a mother but it's just not going to happen any time soon and I know that the longer I leave it the less likely it is. I try not to think about it most of the time but it felt good to get that all out. There's not many people I can talk to irl about it as most of my friendship group wither don't want children or have suffered terribly with fertility issues so my worrying about a hypothetical problem would be like slapping them in the face.

I look like my DCs sister,

Yep, I've met loads of 40-year-olds who look 20 or 17 . . . said no one ever.

Because young men don’t want to have children.

Or they get someone pregnant and leave and then they want to get another 'partner' later on and spawn some more and a guy who has that kind of baggage is often offputting to someone who is still childfree.

It does intrigue me because by the time you’re in your 40’s you’ve lived a huge amount of life and so for me having a baby in my 40’s would have come as a hell of a shock to the system. Plus I do think that we are at risk of creating grandparentless generations because if you have a baby at 40 and that baby has a baby at 40 chances are that you as grandparent are not going to be healthy enough to be a hands-on grandparent.

Ultimately though it is a personal choice just as having children earlier in life is.

However, I do think that people downplay the risks of waiting until your 30’s/40’s. People say “oh, I didn’t have any issues conceiving” but the reality is that your fertility absolutely does drop when you reach 35, and the risk of serious disability increases hugely. So if you are lucky to conceive in your 40’s you are fortunate and not the norm.

While I think that people having babies into their 30’s and 40’s is their own personal choice, I do think that the risks shouldn’t just be dismissed just because others have managed to achieve it. It’s up there with “forget about ttc and you’ll be pregnant by the end of the week” type advice that people give to those who stress about not falling pregnant straight away at any age. For some it will happen, for most it won’t, and at 40 you will be too old for your own eggs to be used in IVF because the success rates are so low.

There's also the reason that some women do start ttc when they are younger and it doesn't work - so they spend years ttc naturally not telling people then only reach out for help when they get older x

DH was 30 when we had first, - an entire decade older than his parents and they told us off for being too young as things had changed since their day.

His cousin just had a baby at 40 - which is apparently ridiculously old – she should have given up idea of mother hood years before . She’s only been with her DP a few years.

I have no idea where this mythical perfect time to be a parent actually is – but I suspect it’s an extremely small window.

I didn't meet DH until I was 34, so unfortunately we'd have struggled to ttc when I was 25, as our time machine doesn't work too well. As it was, we'd only been together a year when we started trying, because I knew we needed to crack on.

#Jayne35 as you have children it’s unlikely you would have been able to have IVF on the NHS as the criteria is generally that IVF is not permitted for couples where either one has children. So if your DH had had children you likely wouldn’t have been able to have IVF because of that.

I'm 29, would like a baby now, but DH would like to get our house sorted first (it's a project, needs windows, kitchen, bathrooms replacing and full decoration). That money isn't going to be available if we are paying nursery fees, so TTC will have to wait another 3-4 years. Getting to the point of stable relationship, suitable home, stable career takes a while.

Next - I don't want to have children without being married so there's that expense as well as waiting for my DP to be ready.

First of all, it doesn't cost much to get married, about £200. You don't need a wedding! And it's certainly very unwise to compromise your fertility for one event. Secondly, it is incredibly sad to read of women who waste their fertile years on some man, they're not even married to, because he's 'not ready'. 9 times out of 10 he then goes on to leave her, get married really quickly to someone younger and then she's pregnant and he's all Mr Family Man whilst she's stuck with nothing.

Don't do it! NO MAN is worth not becoming a mother for if that is what you truly want.

So by "people", the OP is actually questioning why women delay having children.

I was ready to get married and have children with my boyfriend of 4 years when I was 26/27. He wasn't ready and as it turned out was actually seeing someone else before we'd even split up (we'll come back to him later).

I was single for a few years before meeting someone else and he didn't propose, despite hints that I was willing, for another 4 years and wasn't ready for babies for another 2 years.

Many of my female friends also didn't come across a man who was ready to settle down and start a family until they were in their thirties. Everyone assumes we were career women (we generally had careers rather than jobs) but wine fuelled conversations during the career years showed that any one of us would have headed down the aisle and started TTC much earlier had the boyfriend shown an interest in marriage and babies.

Society needs to stop blaming delayed motherhood on women. Responsible women want a willing partner/stable finances before starting a family. Why are there so few articles about the indulgent laddish man-child stage lasts so long these days, thereby delaying motherhood for many women.

• returning to my boyfriend of 4 years, he had a series of long term relationships and finally married, at about the same time as I did, to an older woman. They had twins by ivf after several rounds thereof and he found it emotionally exhausting to go through the process several times. I was just lucky to get pregnant very quickly with my children, despite my age.

Starlings, I'm with you on the defective time machine. Why are some posters still insisting on banging on the poor chances of getting pregnant later in life? I KNOW. I KNEW. What was I supposed to do, go and have a kid with an asshole?

I had university and further degrees. I traveled a lot, both for work and leisure. I also had no interest in having children until I was 39, then conceived straight away and had Dtriplets just before I turned 40.

Kaboodler

I'm Indian, so yes I do look very young for my age. Partly because I've remained a petite size 8 and partly because dark skin ages less than obtrusively that white skin. It's not me that says that btw. It's everyone that is shocked when they realise I have a 20yr old DD as they expect them to be toddlers like their own DC

It might look like I waited until late 30’s but we’d been trying for 6 years! In an ideal world I would have loved my DC earlier but it is what it is, I don’t know any different.

Most of my friends waited because we all couldn’t find a man ready to have children earlier. They dragged their feet and we, being non pushy people with good careers, thought that we shouldn’t insist.

It’s interesting now I’ve been living in a very traditional community where women have children much younger. There is no respecting the man’s decision to wait here! Women just go for it.

Meeting the right partner and also being financially well off so no issues being able to pay for your own child.