To think women are being mislead that they can have children anytime when they want

[Mythought]

One of my friends started TTC at 35 with a new partner whom she knows for very short while only to find out her egg reserve is very low. She has been ttc for 2.5 years now. She was under the impression that she'll have DC whenever she'll be ready and want.
Similar has happened to other colleagues and friends of friends who started TTC later after 35. I think media gives false impression to women that they can have children whenever they'll want only leading to disappointment and people need to be aware of the biological aspects of fertility. Researches have shown that the fertility for women start dropping after 34 years. If more women were aware of this then they Will make better choices.

Fertility is a really personal thing! I think most women are well aware of their fertility window but life is life, and we're not always ready to have a baby in that window!!

I've been with my husband since we were 21. We were at uni, and we moved away for work. We got married at 27, but we weren't ready to ttc until I was 30. Only to discover fertility problems, so didn't get pregnant until the age of 33. Having had the issues sorted, I got pregnant in days, literally! Got pregnant with second baby aged 35 in 2nd month of ttc.

TTC again at 37, conceived 3 months in but had a mc. 7 months then and another mc. Just before I turned 40, I conceived again and that pregnancy was successful thankfully. Didn't have a period again after the birth for nearly 2 years (was breastfeeding) and when it came back, it was only a short time and I was menopausal by 45.

I don't think many 32 year old women think "I'm financially and in a stable relationship but I think I'll wait to TTC until I'm 39".

Maybe not, but I think there will be a significant number who are in acceptable/the 'correct' practical circumstances but don't want to TTC yet, and may not ever. I'm 33, married, both in good stable jobs with a decent maternity package and I'm very much on contraception. Maybe I'll change my mind and TTC at 39. Maybe I'll struggle, and people will say I should have tried earlier. But the reality is I don't want a baby now and I'm willing to take the chance of never having one, and I am not alone in that (and I am also not stupid).

That fertility graph is interesting- male and female graphs don't cross over till the age of 32...so if you are female and struggling to conceive, if you're under 32 best starting investigating the male partner's fertility first as it's more likely a male problem.

I think men are, on average, far far more ignorant of male and female reproductive systems, male and female infertility, miscarriage and foetal abnormality risk factors than women are. And more guilty of magical "won't happen to me/us" thinking.

Well it’s red pill central over here isn’t it?

Well if she was single before and didn’t want to have a baby as a single person (most people can’t afford to) then it doesn’t take a genius to work out why she only started trying at 35. Life isn’t just about ‘choices’ it’s down to circumstance.

Most can’t afford kids (or to give their kids a better life than they had) until mid thirties so you just have to roll the dice 🤷‍♀️

A lot of these days"older celebrity mums" are having DC via surrogacy or donor egg (as I understand to be the case to be here), so I don't think they are giving anyone false hope.

I started trying for my first baby at 35, assuming it would take at least a year, given my age. I became pregnant the first month of trying, and similarly with my second and third pregnancies at the ages of 36 and 40.

Why blame the media? It is common knowldge that one's fertility begings to wane in early 30s. Biological imperative. Plus quality of eggs deteriorate.
So no point in blaming anyone; personal choice based on knowing your body/basic human biology

This is true. I knew the statistics but also knew both my grandmothers had babies relatively late (last at 38/45), one of my great grandmothers had her last baby shortly before 50 and aunt on my dads plus several cousins in early 40s. Lots of family with 4 plus kids and no family history of issues with fertility. Even MIL had OH over 40.

I have had a perfectly regular cycle since I started having periods at 16 and I know my mum and grandma didn’t hit menopause until mid 50s.

I figured we had a better chance than average of being fertile into late 30s/40s and I gambled on it as I wasn’t ready to start trying in my late 20s when we got together. It paid off for us as we had kids mid-late 30s without any issues. Honestly I’d have had to be certain it was my only chance to try and get pregnant at 27/28 to try then. We couldn’t have afforded a baby at that point without a massive lifestyle change and likely me giving up my career. As it is waiting 5 years to start trying got us both better established and it gave us time for stuff like travel, extra professional exams, lots of late nights out etc for a while.

If I’d gambled and lost it would have been a disappointment but I did understand entirely I’d be less fertile over time. We originally thought we’d have a third but paused trying as I was travelling to South America for work when zika was a big thing and then there was Covid and by the end of all that I was 42 and we felt like the risk of issues with another pregnancy and baby were just not worth it.

DD has just turned 17 and the only reason she is here is because of a Woman’s Hour programme about decreased fertility past 35. At the time of the broadcast the information relayed wasn’t new to me but it did something to my subconscious that resulted in DD.

Your friends/ acquaintances thinking that having children post 40 isn’t difficult, are in denial. For every celeb having a baby post 40, there are going to be 1,000s who have struggled (just like non celeb women). There’s enough information out there.

No one has been “misled”: there’s tons of information available about the fact fertility declines rapidly after the age of about 30. If anything on balance I see more stuff in the media and online which implies if you’re not knocked up at 27 it’s game over.

I just think women have more options available to them these days and different priorities. Having a baby within a fairly reliable fertility window comes with certain trade offs in terms of financial stability and career. Unless you’re privately wealthy having a baby very young is likely to limit your ability to support yourself and your children financially.

You can argue that women are wrong to prioritise their careers over having children if you want but it’s hardly due to lack of information.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5EahORsy91/?igsh=MWozdHU2aHc4NjIxMg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4x9Rx6MiJu/?igsh=M21wMHg1bjh5YWUy
There’s a lot of comment on this on instagram. She’s done egg freezing but call me a cynic it looks to me like a publicity thing. She’s done a documentary on iplayer about it. 36 and about to get married. My money is on next year her being pregnant naturally and those eggs never being used. I’m actually surprised at the amount of young women that are commenting asking ‘ooh how much does that cost?’ ‘Do they do repayment plans?’ Like it’s a boob job or something. Not many asking how much it’s going to cost to actually implant them and what the success rate might be. Bit worrying

@Upinthenightagain So women not looking for information on fertility is worrying, and women asking information on fertility options is also worrying? Seems to me women can't win! A comment on an Instagram post is step 1 of looking into it. I think publicising the options can only be a good thing. I think the women seeing it now and becoming interested are probably past the point egg-freezing is a good idea, but if women in their 20s are seeing this and learning from our mistakes it might mean in 10/15 years they'll be 38+, in stable relationships and financial circumstances, with 25 year old eggs to TTC with.

My suspicion is the OP is a bloke who has trouble getting a girlfriend. Rather than bucking up his ideas and behaviour in order to attract a partner, he thinks women should be more inclined to settle (for feckless shits).

All I can see in the final opening line is adding one word onto the end of the statement “If more women were aware of this then they Will make better choices….ME”

*I just think women have more options available to them these days and different priorities. Having a baby within a fairly reliable fertility window comes with certain trade offs in terms of financial stability and career. Unless you’re privately wealthy having a baby very young is likely to limit your ability to support yourself and your children financially.

You can argue that women are wrong to prioritise their careers over having children if you want but it’s hardly due to lack of information.*

Agree.

I also think some postersin this thread are equating difficult, more difficult to impossible when that is not the case for many women.

op I’m confused when you say women should make better choices. As the example you gave was a friend who didn’t meet her life partner till ages 35. What would a better choice have been. To settle with any man and have children. I don’t think so. Children are not always the better choice. It’s well known and talked about that female fertility declines with age. But also no reason lots of women can’t go on to have children into their 40’s. May be harder, take longer, more complications etc. But that might be the better choice for some. To have a career first. To enjoy their young years as they wish and to wait till they meet the partner of their choice. And why use Cameron Diaz as a poster girl for fertility. She’s adopted her children/ used surrogates. Can’t remember which but she doesn’t get pregnant and have children herself. Her choice presumably. Possibly age related. Possibly not.

I felt like it was always hammered into me and my friends that your fertility essentially falls off a cliff which the clock strikes midnight on your 35th birthday! I was very aware of it. I got pregnant at 34 and gave birth at 35. I’m hoping to have another DC at around 37-38 but aware it might not be possible so not pinning all hopes on it.

Saying that though, I know many women who had babies in their late 30s/early 40s with no issues. I suppose it’s a bit of a lottery and you don’t know until you try.

35 was the right time for me though. I bought my first house at 33, was in the highest paid and most flexible job I’d ever been in, my DP and I were on the same page about kids etc - I felt like I’d had a lot of fun in my 20s and was ready to settle down. I wasn’t ready at 25 or 30.

Its a very personal thing and I completely understand why women are having babies later, but I don’t think they’re naively assuming their fertility is the same as it was at 25, they’re going in with their eyes open but hoping for the best.

If your gf doesnt want a baby yet, its up to her. A thrad full of women chattng the odds likely wont change her mind. Her body her choice, you'll just have to wait or find someone who wants to conceive immediately

What media are you talking about? Most media (BBC, mainstream newspapers,...) I have seen actually try to raise awareness that women CAN'T have children when they want...

You would have to be incredibly naive to the point of almost an unbelievable level of ignorance to imagine Cameron Diaz got pregnant naturally at 51. Or any celeb who had a baby in their late 40's/50's. What they do have is huge amounts of money to spend on fertility treatment/surrogacy/egg donation etc.

I think itsxeasier if the child you had at 45 is your 10th than if its your first. For a start, you know you are fertile. For many women, they nay have reduced fertility anyway which gets worse after 35, or they are 25 and have more years of trying before having fertility treatment, so may get pregnant after 11 months, there's if you are 35 you go for fertility treatment after 6 months.

What a very weird thread. I confess I also first suspected that the poster was either a jilted male or a mother in a terrible relationship and/or a dead-end job trying to feel better at the expense of a friend with a decent career but no kids.

The following, as many people have pointed out, are all true at the same time:

• Fertility declines with age. This is a well-known fact.
• Individual circumstances vary. Your own relatives' experiences might be more pertinent than statisical averages.
• Education now takes longer than ever. Some careers require education and training into your 30s.
• In very high cost of living areas, especially "career destination" cities, few people are in situations consistent with starting a family before they're 35.
• Some people never conceive.
• Some people manage to conceive well into their 40s or, with assistance, later.
• Life decisions include many tradeoffs. Sometimes you just have to make a choice, take your chances, and hope things work out.