I’m broody at age 47

[Blackcelebration12]

A friend of mine is pregnant with her first at the same age as my me (47) using donor eggs and it’s made me broody & longing for the baby/young kids phase again as mine are older.

It’s bonkers & selfish though right? I do feel too old but also feel like I’d like to do it all again. Maybe that broody feeling never leaves you does it?

In my rational moments, I really don’t want a teenager in my 60s as I don’t think it’s fair on the child. But then I see babies & get the longing.

Aibu to ask if any of you have felt like this? Talk me down- I know it’s perimenopause too & my ovaries giving it a last burst of broodiness.

Get a puppy OP.

Mine are 3 and 5. I'm 40 and not having anymore. I feel broody all the time though. I regularly think back about my births and look back at the messages I sent whilst I was in labour and just after birth. I loved giving birth and the days after, it was a really lovely and positive experience for me. I was high on adrenalin and walking on air for days, it was such a special time. I can't really be arsed with going through the sleepless nights again though. Mine sleep now and I'm just starting to get a bit of freedom back. I need to remind myself of that.

I’m 48 and have found myself to be really broody over the last year or so

I think it’s more that my time is up

I would have liked another baby but it didn’t happen (single) and now it won’t happen has left me a little sad

Still grandchildren to look forward to 😁 (not for sometime yet)

Can you imagine going through stroppy teenage stuff and being up half the night to collect a 19 year old from a party when you're 70? Not to mention the cost of uni fees as a pensioner.
For me the age I was when I had my youngest (39) was old enough!

47 is absolutely crazy

You really want a 13 year old at 60?

My dad was 47 when dd1 was born. At 47 he still seemed pretty young and able to handle a baby. Now he’s 63 and would definitely not want to be a parent to a 16 year old!! Health problems have crept in over the last 6 or 7 years and while he is still working full time, he wouldn’t want to them be running a teen here and there in the evening.

Give yourself a bit of a shake OP. You have kids, and while at 47 you feel that you’d like a baby. I very much doubt you’d want a teen in your 60s.

That said my sister inlaw is expecting no 2 at 44, she’ll be 45 by the time he’s born. My brother is younger at 36 though and they had been trying for 4 years, they’d pretty much given up when she discovered she was pregnant. I’m a bit worried to be honest, but they are really happy and I’m excited to meet the little one. I had my kids young and am definitely done! 2 teenagers and just getting my career started. I did feel a bit broody a while ago, but my puppy sorted that out!

47 is really quite old to be having a newborn and that’s even if you manage to have a baby naturally straight away, you and your DH may be fit and healthy now but what’s to say 5-10 years down the line something changes? Give yourself a shake OP.

Good grief.

I am 63 and have a 19 year old having had my last at 43x

It really isn’t the norm to be feeling too decrepit for life in your 60s and 70s.

No part of child raising felt too hard or too tiring, D.C. was never assumed to be my grandchild.

If you are in a pension when your kids go to Uni.... they will get a full loan, unless your pension is madly generous. Also..by this age some of us saved hard.

My contemporaries go running, camping, go to gigs in pubs and to see bands, go dancing, discuss fashion, go to the gym, drink cocktails... normal lively things.

I am beginning to think that having children young prematurely ages you

I am not encouraging the OP to have a baby. But some views on women of natural childbearing age (if she conceives ) are preposterous.

As a child free person (by choice) I find threads like this facinating. I really wish I felt the feeling you all describe and wanted a family. I see my friends with their new babies and how happy they look and how uncomplicated and deep that love is and I envy them a bit...but I have never knowingly felt broody in my life!

@Hangingover

As a child free person (by choice) I find threads like this facinating. I really wish I felt the feeling you all describe and wanted a family. I see my friends with their new babies and how happy they look and how uncomplicated and deep that love is and I envy them a bit...but I have never knowingly felt broody in my life!

I didn’t feel broody in the slightest until I reached 35. Then it hit me like a steam train.

Hi OP the feeling probably will pass but you are totally right to acknowledge it and not squash it down.

I’m a similar age. I’ve never been broody despite having 3 children. I can’t think of anything worse than having a Baby at 47. I had my last at 35 and I’m still one of the oldest mums at the school!

I’m with YoungCrone.

I’m 57. Dd is 14. We’ve saved all her life for uni fees. When she’s 19, I’ll be 61. Big deal🤷🏼‍♀️. I can still collect her from places.

We don’t all get a Zimmer frame on our 50 th birthdays🙄

@Hangingover

As a child free person (by choice) I find threads like this facinating. I really wish I felt the feeling you all describe and wanted a family. I see my friends with their new babies and how happy they look and how uncomplicated and deep that love is and I envy them a bit...but I have never knowingly felt broody in my life!

I never felt broody but I just always knew I wanted children, if that makes sense.

Yes, I find all the cries of 'but you must be so decrepit in your 40s and 50s, because I am (or fear I'm going to be)!' so strange. To those posters: a lot of other people are healthier, happier and less fearful than you are.

People considering parenthood in their 40s now, are a self-selecting group of healthy and on average quite wealthy people. They are more financially stable for the long term than most people who became parents earlier, because they've worked FT and developed their careers unimpeded for so many years. They know what they want and what they're capable of, because they've tried things and tested themselves in so many ways already.

Mostly, I think that everyone finds the baby and toddler years quite tiring and, once they've done it as much as they wanted to, don't want to do it again (spot the tautology!). New parents, of any age, haven't done it yet (obviously!) so do not approach it, or experience it, with that sense of prior exhaustion. To them it is new, fun and rewarding.

I’m 32 with 2 aged 3 and nearly 1 . I really enjoy my babies but by gosh am I tired haven’t had more than a 4 hour stretch of sleep since 2017 .

I plan on having one more next year hopefully and that will be me done . I know once I get my kids sleeping I would never be able to go back to sleepless nights and nursing again .

My Mam had me early twenties with my sister and then two more late 30’s early 40’s she never struggled and ran around us all the same just as she does now that the youngest are hitting their teens !! I wouldn’t be surprised if not for biology if she said she wanted more !

@Hangingover I got pregnant at 33 by accident & had my DS at 34. Up to that point I was still doing loads of travelling and I never ever felt broody. I had my DD a few years later but still wasn’t massively broody then. It’s only now, much later on, that it’s hit me hard and probably for all the reasons people have said on here- ovaries coming to end of working life!

I almost feel like I am suddenly grieving for small kids and it’s only happened since my friend of the same age for pregnant. It’s very odd.

In reality, as Dr Christiane Northrup talks about a lot regarding perimenopause, it’s not a time to birth another baby but to birth the next phase of your life and I find that very interesting but also scary as I have been head down in motherhood and pregnancy for 14 years so far. I guess it’s about remembering who you were before you had kids!!

I am 74 and frequently dream that I have had a baby. It is lovely in my dream and I am sad when I wake up and realise it is not true.
The thing is I am not particularly maternal and didn't really enjoy the years when my own were babies and toddlers.
I think for me it's regret that I didn't appreciate them as I should have when they were small.
I do agree that as you head towards the menopause your body wants to trick you into another.

‘In reality, as Dr Christiane Northrup talks about a lot regarding perimenopause, it’s not a time to birth another baby but to birth the next phase of your life’

It is that sort of statement that would immediately make me want to have a baby even if l was 60.

Life is about choice and accident. You can birth a baby whenever you want. Your baby may be the next phase of your life.

What a trite statement🤮

There is really no need for some of the comments on here. So ignorant.

And l bet it was made by some smug woman who’d managed to have her children early by accident. Because she met someone. Plenty of people have children in oerimenopiase, events in their lives may only have enabled children at this point.

I don't think the increased risk of birth defects have been mentioned on this thread, or have I missed it?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I think it’s an interesting point though. Mistaking the urge for a baby for the end of childbearing years. It’s obviously quite woo there’s a point behind it isn’t there- she’s asking if women really want another baby at 47. I am trying to work that out now!

@Frequentflier I guess by friend has bypassed the risks tho at 47 by using donor eggs

Yes, your friend has. I wasn't sure if that was what you were considering though, but I guess you are? Anyway, have a look at the Teenagers board if you want to give your head a wobble:)

My own grandmom had her last baby at 48, but that was a different time and a different country. She was a good mother. Prob better than me.