To think people should stop comparing older infertility to younger.

[Laneyy]

Preparing to be flamed It's very sad when someone cannot conceive aged 40+ but to compared to someone in their 20s/30s isn't fair. Especially when the infertility is secondary It's very likely if the 40+ year old would have tried 5-15 years ago they wouldn't have problems conceiving. So many people try to deny the biological clock but sadly fertility does decline in people in their 40s. I understand people do get naturally pregnant in their 40s but stasticially it's rarer than people in their 30s and 20s.

I became infertile at 27 after an ectopic pregnancy

do you think I should have started trying at 25 OP? How about 21? 17?

women don’t have babies on their own - they need a man as well. Where are all the men in their 20s desperate yo settle down & have babies?

lots of women are not in position to have children in their 20s. Some women - stay with me here - want to have children with a man they’ve fallen in love with & whom they trust to stay with them & raise that child. What if they don’t meet that man till into their 30s? Should they just have had babies with any old bloke just cos they might miss out?

Started my infertility journey at 36, it was hell, my babies were born in my forties (one natural at 44) at what point should I have my pain invalidated because 'I should have known better, because you know... menopause?'

What a nasty divisive post.

Of course.

My childless friend has done more travelling than me, has had her ‘freedom’ for longer.

But having children isn’t on the same level as a few holidays or a nice car, to me. It’s the biggest decision I’ve ever taken in my life and missing out on it would make me more sad than missing out on travelling or a promotion (which can still be done with children or after they’ve grown up, so not sure why that’s a thing).

Plus I think normalising older motherhood actually plays into men’s hands. They can drag relationships out for years and years without committing because that expectation is no longer there. They, of course, have the luxury of waiting about and stringing women along because their fertility won’t drop off a cliff at 40.

You can have an opinion on anything you like. However, if that opinion is on the validity of someone else's pain, I am allowed to express the opinion that I think that attitude sucks. And if it was a man I'd say exactly the same thing.

Exactly! I express my opinion, you express yours, and on it goes. It’s just the wrath is always disproportionate for certain topics on here and this is one of them.

Thank you for letting me know that I can now stop caring that I couldn't have children 50 years ago when things like IVF and everything else associated with fertility never existed and which I was informed of when I was in my teens.

Fucking ignorant.

What does this all even mean? You couldn’t have children 50 years ago, or 50 years ago you wouldn’t have been able to have children? And who are you speaking to?

Wrath? Pointing out that the thread is divisive is hardly frothing at the mouth.

It’s not just the egg reserve that declines in a woman’s mid 30s, but also egg quality. Most older celeb mums in their 40s or even 50s use egg donors or have IVF and the chance to select embryos. They can afford those extra checks to prevent miscarriage (abnormal chromosomes) or disabilities. Some use surrogacy.

Chromosomal abnormalities in human eggs are extremely common. It’s not something that should be considered to be a particularly abnormal situation, and in most cases its something that all women, even young women, will have in their eggs at a low level but that level increases with advancing age.

For a woman in her 20s, a quarter of her eggs may be expected to have chromosomal abnormalities – this increases to up to 40% for a woman between 30 and 35, and “goes up simply exponentially from there on”. Beyond the age of 35, the frequency of these chromosomally abnormal eggs increases by 0.5% per month, so that for a woman in her early 40s up to three-quarters of her eggs will have chromosomal abnormalities.

www.bbc.com/future/article/20200828-how-fertility-changes-with-age-in-women