To wonder about people's awareness of fertility decline

[Orangeblossom78]

decline I mean, in late 30s/40s. I know someone who on trying to get pregnant for the first time in their early 40s is shocked and devastated to be told of their fertility being low at this stage. AIBU but is is not usually apparent that our fertility declines after mid 30s and you can't just expect to have an easy time getting pregnant in early 40s.

But - forgive me if I'm wrong - wouldn't couples doing IVF not be having unprotected sex? I thought it wasn't ideal?

It's true it could include people on medication, by that description. Would be useful to know.

It's funny this week there have been threads telling women they shouldn't wait to have kids and a thread telling women that they're responsible for picking shit fathers to procreate with.
Not to mention the many benefits bashing threads telling women (it's always the women isn't it?) that they shouldn't have kids they can't support.

I had DD at 42.
I didn't meet anyone until 39.We had IVF.( No medical reason just that it wasn't working naturally).We had no expectations.
I was so aware,it was like living through an emotional lottery.
I started with two,lost one but then had an uncomplicated pregnancy and easy delete very.
I was grateful and lucky.But the amount of people who couldn't understand why I didn't have another were astounding.I was lucky once to have a healthy child and no problems myself and I have met other mothers of late babies who have not been so lucky.

I’m referring to fertility treatment in general not strictly IVF itself, you’re right to make the distinction.

I do feel things have swung slightly, I was always brought up with 35+ is advanced. It surprises me how 'normal' having babies in your 40s seems to be on Mumsnet. It's very different from my norm and reality around me, I actually had it in my head I'd be infertile by my 40s (naively, I appreciate I'm the other end of the spectrum!). It's the chromosomal risks that concern me, I had children in my 20s, I'm broody for a 3rd in my 30s but this terrifies, especially due to the impact on my children I've already had, I perhaps wouldn't be so nervous if I was starting out.

YY, I was replying to the bit where you mentioned IVF specifically.

I'd imagine it's very difficult to get an accurate picture anyway, because with something as private as sex, people won't always tell the truth. You are going to get people who swear blind they're having sex at least twice a week, oh goodness yes, nothing wrong with our libidos, ho ho. Because people do.

I think that in certain demographics of society there is a Peter Pan syndrome, and a culture of people having what they want when they want it - and therefore some people imagine it wouldnt happen to them.

I live in a city in the South that is notorious for partying and chilled out living, and people here anecdotally do seem to have children later. I personally know of 6 women who had a first child, and then when that child started sleeping so they could go out more, they sort of went back to their social lives for a few years - thinking they would have a 2nd baby in a few years time. They all experienced secondary infertility and only one of them now has a second child.

All of this is because they werent "ready" to do it all again, but they all mourn not having that second child. 2 of these women got pregnant during the first month of trying first time round - so I suppose for them it kind of reinforced the idea that getting pregnant would be easy.

My own sister is almost 38 - she got pregnant on her first attempt at 36 and has said she is waiting until she feels ready to have a second.... Each to their own, but I do think that she maybe doesnt fully understand decline in fertility but also egg quality. This leads to more chance of miscarriages etc. All of which are v traumatic to deal with. I had DS at 32 and within 6 months was pregnant with DD and if I had my life again I would do exactly yhe same thing - but possibly a few years earlier.

I think most women are aware that their fertility declines as they get older. I had my first child at 36 and have gone on to have three more since with all of them conceived with three months of trying. However, I know many much younger women who have struggled because fertility is a very personal thing and their levels were much lower at a much younger age.

TTC and having a baby can be a difficult and stressful thing as it is. The last thing anyone wants to hear is the implication it’s their fault because they are old. That might not be the case at all; they might have struggled if they had tried to get pregnant in their mid 20s.

In the case mentioned it was just a matter of deciding to try for a baby late on after being unsure over whether they want one previously or not. They will be trying with IVF which in Scotland is available up to 42. It is the IVF clinic informed them of the success rate. Hence the shock etc. I wonder if seeing lots of women in 40s with babies makes us think is is easy to do that- not for most perhaps. Not past 40.

All of this is because they werent "ready" to do it all again

You say that as if it's somehow evidence they were wrong? I don't follow why 'ready' is in inverted commas?

It may be true that, had they cracked on, they might have got pregnant (or they might not). But it's realistic to consider whether you can cope with two very close together, especially if you're taking into account things like the possibility of a rough recovery. I believe c-section rates go up with age, for example.

I would love another baby and we did try when DD was a couple of months old (DD isn't my bio daughter; I wasn't shagging like a bunny postpartum, before anyone suggests). And it didn't happen, which is sad, but in all honesty I can see it would have been very hard work with two tiny ones close together. A few of my baby group had second babies with a very small gap, and it is rough.

So I'm not sure it's fair to imply that if someone is mourning secondary infertility, they were wrong to wait to TTC a second.

I'm sure that most people are aware that fertility declines but that doesn't mean that they aren't going to be devastated to find out that they are infertile if they have had to put off having a baby.

They go on about loss of fertility in the media that it is easy for women to assume that they don't need to use contraception any more in their 40s hence the high rate of abortion in this age group.

I think it’s often down to w lack of formal sex Ed. The issue of fertility was covered at school for me. I know that at 26 your fertility starts to decline (in the truest sense in the it may take slightly longer than three months to conceive, your risk of genetic abnormalities is slightly elevated, miscarriage rates increase very slightly and so on). Then these risks increase very slightly until early 30’s when they increase exponentially. After 35 you are likely to experience fertility problems of some kind. After 40 it’s is unlikely that you will fall pregnant easily and have a successful normal pregnancy and birth.

I know that if I decide to have more children in the future it won’t be as easy as before. I don’t think it’s a reason not to try, most of us will know someone who had an easy pregnancy and good birth in their late 30’s/early 40’s but you do have to come into it with managed expectations.

@sheshootssheimplores nope not unusual. As another PP pointed out if you have a family history of women having babies in their 40s you are likely to as well.

@foodname MN is an older crowd. In my area anyone having a child before 30 is rare.

Also the people I know who have or have had a child have had chromosomal abnormalities had them under 35. One reason is women under 35 aren't tested or advised to have tests. Once they have had that child, then all future pregnancies are tested.

@SarahAndQuack because I had an easy labour I was told by the midwives to crack on and have another child. I was like nope she already has a sibling.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

It can be, but in my case these are my third and forth children and it’s been getting easier.

First child conceived at 33 after 10 months, second conceived at 35 after one period (just given up breastfeeding at night) and third and fourth conceived at 38 while on depo injections.
My mother and sisters all have had ‘late babies’ with no mc or any other problems, so either we are a lucky family, or women that don’t have problems tend to stay away from threads like this.

I particularly never mention the no mc thing as it must be such an awful thing to go through, I wouldn’t like to take away from someone’s hard experience by mentioning my own very easy one.

I’m stopping having children now. I’m feel old

YANBU.

It’s not just about getting pregnant. When getting older the risk of miscarriages or chromosomal abnormalities increases. However, medically, that still counts as becoming pregnant. So just because 82% of 35-39 year olds fall pregnant within a year, doesn’t mean this results in a baby.

Sadly this is true. Whether or not someone falls pregnant within a year, the older you are the higher the chances of chromosomal issues and miscarriage. One of the downsides to TTC late thirties and beyond is that if you struggle, time is really running out to embark upon testing, fertility treatment and so forth.

I think it’s important to educate young people, male and female, that if having children is important to them they ought to keep it in the back of their minds when planning their futures and not assume that if they leave things up to chance it’ll all work out. I was 28 when I started seriously wanting a baby, but in a relationship that was never going to lead to that. So we split up, I dated, met someone who also wanted kids within the foreseeable future (I wouldn’t have continued dating him if he hadn’t), made a plan together re career and savings etc. and set a date to try when I turned 31. If I hadn’t been clear in my mind I was ready for a family and deliberately set out to achieve that I might have wasted more fertile time on a dead end relationship with someone I was into but who didn’t share the same goals as me, wouldn’t have been so determined to spend that couple of years after meeting DH really cracking on professionally and putting money away so we had stable housing before trying, or prioritised getting married. So many people said I had ages yet and didn’t need to worry. But things take time to work towards, and even TTC my first at 31 felt like cutting it a bit fine in case we had issues and needed time to sort them out.

As it turns out I had endometriosis and one of my tubes was already irreparably blocked, if I’d hung around another few years there’s every possibility the second tube would have been fucked too making me infertile. I’m relieved that I started feeling the clock ticking when I did and was single minded about working towards a family. I told DH on our second date, when discussing why our previous relationships had ended, that I was ready for kids and planning to start a family within the next three years one way or another, and that if that fitted with his goals then great, we could date, but if he knew it didn’t fit with what he wanted from life that’s great too but there was no point in dating.

There’s a real lack of understanding about the impact of leaving it very late biologically to have children, I’m not in favour of scaremongering but the statistics are out there for anyone to read and educate themselves. Yet the common mentality amongst most people who aren’t fertility aware seems to be that ‘people have babies later and later these days’, a male friend of mine the other day mentioned how we could easily have left it until our forties as his sister had her kids in her forties, and was shocked and didn’t initially believe me when I told him the reality of how your chances of a healthy baby in your forties differ from in your twenties. He just knew someone who’d had them at that age and assumed it was doable and easy for anyone. And of course you see so many celebrities having first babies in their forties who may not necessarily disclose they needed expensive treatment for years or used donor eggs, combined with only hearing from women who did have healthy babies in their forties but not hearing from the ones who couldn’t (as infertility and pregnancy loss is still very much in the shadows).

I think the saddest thing to see is women hanging onto a relationship with a guy who doesn’t want kids but is clearly stringing her along for years with a ‘someday’, believing that she can wait until her late thirties/early forties and then finding out too late the ship has sailed (and their ex moving onto someone younger and having a couple of kids pretty quickly). I very nearly was that woman. It’s crazy what you’ll put up with if you’re blinded by love and hope.

It is the IVF clinic informed them of the success rate. Hence the shock etc. I wonder if seeing lots of women in 40s with babies makes us think is is easy to do that- not for most perhaps. Not past 40.

The IVF success rate 40+ is surprisingly low and it falls very fast. 44+ it’s something like 2%.

But I do have a friend who got pregnant via IVF at 47. After trying for years.

What I don’t think people are genuinely aware of is how high their risk of chromosome disorders is

I agree. I’ve seen posters in their forties on here and heard people in RL say that as they’re “healthy with no chromosome abnormalities in the family, don’t smoke and drink” that they aren’t concerned about having a baby with one.

Sadly it doesn’t work like that.

Actually, my last paragraph was unecessarily infantilising. If a woman is choosing to stay with a guy who isn’t ready for kids and has weighed up the risks of waiting versus leaving and pursuing a family elsewhere and understands those risks then more power to her. Fair play. And that info is available readily. I made it seem like she has no choice or agency in the matter but that’s rarely the case.

YANBU.

DH and I are mid forties, happily child free, yet we both still have people asking us when we are going to have kids! Our neighbour has commented about how our dogs are practice for when we have children and how we should make the most of our carefree lives before kids come along. Are people really that ill-informed. I mean, we both look pretty good for our ages but still!

I'm 30 now and I have my two children. My sil was 35 when she had IVF and successfully had a baby. Her husband was 43 and had a low count aswel as sil having trouble with her eggs.

I know another girl who learnt she was unable to have kids around the age of 30.

Another one who managed to fall pregnant at 33 with pcos and obviously he was a special gift.

My partner works with a lad aged 32 who's girlfriend is 29. They have been told they both have problems and won't be able to have children.

That said my mum had me and my sister in her mid 30s.

Tbh I think life has changed massively for women. When you think back to how most women were mother's and home makers. There was limited protection etc. I did home care and my ladies often had 6-8 children as they came from that time when the men wanted to have there way and they fell pregnant as there were no pills or control. So women back then had babies right through there late teens to mid 30s and beyond.

My Grandma had five children over 16 years. My dad is one of 8 kids all born 18 months to 24 months apart.

Now women have the pill, have condoms, careers, they are more equal etc and therefore they are waiting longer to have babies. I think now we look for that perfect moment. My niece is 27 now and has said hopefully next year for 3 years now. She just constantly says they are not financially ready. Yet they travel and holiday alot. They have nights out and days out and seem to have fun all the time. I tell her she will never be 100% ready and you just learn to manage.

I do think the lifestyle women have now has contributed massively into women waiting longer and sadly struggling MN

My body is slowly going wappy now I'm 30. Heavier periods, shorter cycles, painful ovulation. I miss my 24 year old body as I felt so much healthier as a women.

I do think most women know about the decline in fertility. I just do not think they comprehend the age and quality of the eggs. I know of someone who is wealthy owns properties good job and she wanted a child. Now she has started her menopause and depressed she said I was trying to wait until the time is right.

In Indian families it’s very common to find women getting pregnant naturally until their mid-forties. And if you look at the success rates for women in their forties using their own eggs in Indian clinics it is often much higher compared to the UK. There are two reasons for this; Indian women in their forties don’t tend to suffer low egg reserve problems like white women do, and secondly the clinics will actively manage medication like clomid before IVF. You aren’t just left on a base dose for 6 months like what happens in the NHS.

So I would say the fertility issues Op mentioned are true for British (white) women but not necessarily true for non-white women.

I know a woman who at 34 used to say she wanted a large family but said she wanted to wait until her 40s as she didn't feel ready. She was happily married so I didn't really understand but her reasons are her reasons. I met her again recently and she's 46 and doesn't have children. I think most women are aware though.

Hasn't there been a stark increase over the last decade in the number of terminations performed on women in their forties? Women who have internalised this message so much that they don't think they need to bother with contraception because the chances of conceiving are apparently virtually nil.

Yes, I'd heard this too.

I'm in my early thirties and I've heard it all sides. You'll be barren. The stats are exaggerated.

I've worked with a lot of women who put their city careers first and are now popping out babies in their 40s, seemingly without much effort. But I guess you don't hear as much about the ones that don't pan out.