To not know if I can get pregnant at 49?

[Holyguacamollie]

I stopped using contraception a few months ago because quite frankly I'm sick of it and when I googled getting pregnant at 49.6 it said it was 0-1% chance.

It felt like v good odds.

However. I now 'feel' pregnant and I'm a bit panicked. Period due in a few days.

Surely I couldn't be could I?

My MIL had her last DC at 50 - she ignored the symptoms, thinking it was menopause. Ended up having the baby on BILs wedding day. A surprise to her to the whole family.

Yep, I had a great uncle who was born 19 years after his older sister. Predictably he was given the name Gerard.

It was known as a 'change of life baby' and used to be more common as contraception wasn't as common or easy to get.

Someone I know got pregnant naturally at 47 but it wasn’t a healthy pregnancy, she got eclampsia, had a fit, emergency Caesarian, went Into a coma and it was touch and go for a while. She and the baby were eventually ok.

If I had a £ for everyone who told me while I was ttc about their relative/friend/hairdresser’s cousin’s next door neighbour’s menopause baby I’d be a millionaire. Never happened for me though and I’m quite glad it didn’t on the whole.

FIL was the youngest of 14 living children (plus at least five more pregnancies resulting in still births or deaths soon after birth)
He was born in 1913. His mother was 53 and he couldn’t understand why she was an ‘invalid’ and he was raised by his older sisters.
He definitely wasn’t his older sister’s child either! A sister who did get pregnant was disowned, thrown out and killed herself - extremely devout chapel people.
I have seen the birth and death certificates as proof.

Seriously, can you imagine having three babies to look after when you're 43?

Why would looking after 3 babies at 43 be any different to looking after them at 23 or 33?

@RockingMyFiftiesNot

Erm,
perimenopause?

True, but most of them will be 45 or 46; not 50!

Thanks, I will update you all once I've bought the test and have the result.

My grandad was born in 1917, all documentation states who is mother is except she wasn't, she was his grandma. So anyone looking back now would not know the truth. He was born at home no medical presence, presume she just took him to register him?

Hope the result is what you want, @Holyguacamollie ❤️

I was asking a midwife as they know whether a pregnancy is natural conception or IVF/ egg donor. You can't be sure if the people you know had IVF many people don't share whether they had .

I know all 3 pregnancies were natural, or I wouldn't have listed them as examples of over 43 yr olds naturally getting pregnant and carrying full term.

The expectant parents were not intending to have more kids, they were "caught" as I outlined. There was a deal of embarrassment among their teenage and older children, there was a great deal of sheepishness from them, there were concerns among them re abnormalities etc. They were all clear they had been caught out and pregnancies were unplanned and natural.

You seem to think it's not common ...... As I said where I live it was really very common until recently that couples had kids up to 45 and occasionally beyond ... Under the rule of the Catholic church.
And as for every one if them being their young unmarried DD'S child passed off as theirs .... I doubt the numbers if kids born with Downs would be as high as it was, if the majority of them were not their 49 something parents.

It happens, quite a lot - when 40 something women don't use effective contraception. There is a range of fertility. Some are done around 30, some around 40, some go on to nearly 50.

But not everyone is perimenopausal then!

*40 something parents'

What percentage of all those pregnancies to 40 something women though?

Lots of Irish grandmothers were having more kids in early 40s while their married sons and daughters were having kids .... There was no need for any child born to those couples to be passed off as their parents.

I've just remembered, one of my brother's friends from VI Form betting a baby sister at 18. I'm not sure how old his mum was but she had two teenage boys so must have been in her 40s, possibly older.

I don’t really think people are peddling it, more that people who have experience of it are being drawn to the thread title.

If your period isn’t due for another day or two OP then hopefully you’re just feeling pregnant because you’ve been worrying about it and picking up on every little thing that could be a symptom. Good luck with the test.

Yes, that's more likely than a 53 year old woman in 1913.

Ive heard of women thinking their periods are messed up due to perimenopause when actually its a pregnancy. Sometimes its a lovely surprise but many must be devastated.
Good luck whatever happens op.

Lots of Irish grandmothers were having more kids in early 40s while their married sons and daughters were having kids .... There was no need for any child born to those couples to be passed off as their parents.

It wouldnt be their son who is getting pregnant!

Not to say women don't have babies late 40s but so what if some of their children are married? There will be younger ones who aren't if they've been having children over the span of 20 years.

I remember meeting a woman at the baby clinic who I thought was his grandmother... she was over 50 when she had him and had her 30 year old daughter with her.

And I know of two other women who had babies in their fifties too, so it can't be that unusual?

My Mums grandmother claimed to have a baby later in life - my Mum's aunt.

50 years later it was discovered that Mum's aunt was actually her sister, brought up by her grandparents as she'd been born to a single teen mum.

Pretty common I think, so I'm not sure I'd panic too much about the stories of older mums in the past

I and most of my friends are out the other side of that and not a single one was unable to carry on as normal during peri. I know more women who were floored by their periods than peri. Not saying it doesn't happen but 43 is young for peri and not everyone is incapable of living a busy life during it.

Your response also makes me laugh because people are more than happy to allow grandparents to look after their children all week. I have never seen anyone write on here 'I can't ask my Mum or MIL to provide childcare because they are perimenopausal'

Appreciate that having 3 babies full time is different and a heck of a lot of work. I just wanted to question the poster who couldn't. Imagine doing it at 43. Too many people on here posting ageist views these days.

Thing is if you are an older mother and off-spring of an older mother yourself, you will find that other old woman will tell you how their child was conceived e.g. natural, IVF, or became part of their family even if you aren't especially interested. (To be fair I've had men I've worked with tell me about their and their partners IVF journey.)

There as if your mother was average age they clam up.

The reason is because people are judgemental.

When I was pregnant with my DD most healthcare workers were fine as they have dealt with older mothers. Well I'm in London and many healthcare workers tend to work in different parts of London with different ethnic-religious communities. A couple of healthcare workers were very interested - I discovered later why one was 😂as she went on to have her own child as an older mother - however one was extremely rude.