Would you become pregnant at 47 if....

[Noangelbuthavingfun]

*Also posted in pregnancy

You desperately know you've always wanted a 2nd child and it never went away ... tried but failed many times.... would you go for donor eggs and partner sperm and just do it ? Many celebrities do it late into 40s.... its now or never. I'm just thinking you regret the things you never did... aibu to just do it ? Has anyone you know or have you done this ??

Thing is, you don't get your state pension until 67 so the reality is that, health permitting, we will all have to work until that age anyway!

It doesn't end either when they're 18. Uni is another rollercoaster of emotions, setbacks, successes, relationships good and bad, and expense. Even after uni. many young people are back living at home. I've had one living with us 2.5 years while saving to buy a house. Another one went away for 4 years, came back for 2 years, and has gone again. Youngest is living at home part-way through uni. I honestly didn't think the level of practical commitment and support would go on for so long!

@Noangelbuthavingfun I really feel for you. I had fertility issues for years, followed by 2 DC in my mid 30s, miscarriages, then DC3 when I was 40. It's not what I had planned but hey, life got in the way.

I don't honestly think I'd have had a baby at 48. I'm in my early 60s and couldn't contemplate having a teenager. Maybe people adapt; I suppose they do if the situation is a reality.

IVF has such a small chance of success too, and if you did conceive, what is the likelihood of miscarriage? Disappointed and devastation all over again, and still no baby. I'm not sure it's a good idea to put yourself through that. I really feel for you though - I know what that sense of longing is like.

By 48, I was post-menopausal anyway, done and dusted!

If I felt like this then I absolutely would.

The question of "am I too old?" has come up on MN for many many years. You will get some people who wouldn't dream of having a baby over the age of 29 and others who have happily given birth in their late forties.
It's a huge decision and the only person who can weigh it up is yourself. Asking strangers on the internet is just going to leave you in a further state of indecision.

All the best in whatever you decide x

I think everyone's circumstances are different, and nobody should be judging anybody's family choice, although of course people do.
Personally I couldn't as I simply don't have the stamina, and I know just how tiring and exhausting toddlers are!
But I have a number of friends late 40s and early to mid fifties and they are probably just as fit or fitter than a good number of twenty and thirty somethings. I don't think age alone should be a determiner to being a parent.

I wish we could dispense with the term ‘ donor eggs’. The vast majority of these are not ‘donated’, women are not just making them available for nothing in exchange. Women are being persuaded into handing over some eggs in exchange for their own fertility treatment: that’s not donation, it’s a commercial financial transaction. There was a scandal when fertility clinics were taking stalls at freshers fairs, offering cash for girls’ eggs. ( I don’t know if that has been stopped). Who knows how the eggs in clinics in places like Turkey, that paradise of medical good practice and female emancipation have been obtained? Who knows whether the blonde blue eyed postgraduate ‘donor’ I have seen promised in foreign sites is really a drug addicted thirty year old? You just have to take it on trust.

Sperm, yes, loads of blokes have plenty to spare and the process of harvesting may even be pleasant, it certainly isn’t hard. (Although it would still be fairly weird not knowing if you have children somewhere ). But for women it’s a hard, drug filled invasive procedure.

You might even call it an all too typical exploitation of women’s bodies.

If 47 is too old to have a baby, then why are authorities approving people of this age to adopt babies?🤔

Should add if you naturally conceive when older, no one should be judging. However the ethics around egg harvesting are a totally different matter. Too many women are left infertile or with significant and sometimes life changing injuries following an egg harvest (of course nothing is black and white, and using an egg from a sibling or some such, would be a different matter again).

If you're open to a donor egg, wouldn't you consider fostering or adopting instead? None of the physical challenges of pregnancy and you'd know what if any challenges a child would have. I have only one son and at 55, there won't be another but the genetic link to the family will matter a lot to me.

That is a shame, but on the flip side if your DH’s parents hadn’t had him then he wouldn’t have been here. Being born to younger parents doesn’t guarantee a happy and carefree life, unfortunately.

Simple,to the point & best comment on the thread.

No, I wouldn't do it. I just think it is a bit too old.

They aren't though, in many areas the maximum age for.the woman to get to adopt a baby is 45. You can adopt a toddler at 47 but not a baby (in most circumstances)

I’m 50 menopausal with a ND teenager. It’s exhausting. I was looking forward to some freedom but it all going to take a bit longer. She’s not independent at all but can be left.
I can’t imagine choosing not to have any independence until my 60s

Absolutely too old, sorry. I have three so my opinion doesn’t hold that much weight. You are in perimenopause , it’s a shit place to be. I feel you, I really do. We have to find a purpose because those child bearing years are coming to an end. In a society that hates old women, it’s a horrible feeling to feel like we have no value. I struggle with it. This is an age thing.

I think it’s hard for people to answer this if they have the family they want. Everything in me is screaming I could not do that but part of that is because I’ve kind of got the T-shirt ( or the one I wanted ) and if I felt my family wasn’t complete then … maybe.

I think you will get a lot of skewed responses as those that had their babies all done in their 30s are probably going to say no don't do it. But life doesn't always work out the way we plan. I didn't plan to have my 2nd at 40 with a 5 year age gap but here we are. Actually it has all worked out lovely and I feel like I have been able to offer both my children the best of my time which possibly I wouldn't have done with the smaller gap.
So if you are 100% set on it than go for it. Obviously no guarantees it's even going to work but if you don't try you won't ever know.

I would not. I have a very, very strong feeling of sadness that I did not have a second baby, but that is not the same as wanting to actually have another baby now. I personally feel that I am too old (nearly 49). I'm perimenopausal. I am, in every sense, past it. I had my first baby at 41, would happily have had another one up to 45 but for me the door is closed. It is one of a handful of things that I will always feel sad didn't happen, but I feel very, very lucky to have what I have.

I'm not telling you what to do, OP, just telling you where I am on this and why.

I never planned to have only one child but that's the way it has turned out for me and I've had to make my peace with that.
47 is too old to become a mother again. Baby wouldn't be born until OP is at least 48, if everything works out as planned with IVF. A teenage older sibling would love the baby of course - that's what families do but they may never be close. My DH is 17 years younger than his oldest brother and they've a very limited relationship now that my DH doesn't need his older brother's advice or direction.

I’m 48 and think you’re off your rocker to be considering it. Think about the potential burden on the child that you have.

There is a world of difference between a second baby at 40 vs at 47.

This irks me somewhat as well. Of course there are people in their 70s and above who are fit as fleas and people who die before they are 50.
But the chances of a person dying 70+ are often course significantly higher.
Yes, people can and do die young. But that is a much rarer, tragic circumstance. Age is NOT just a number. Statistically, your children are much more likely to be either losing you or looking after you at a younger age if you have them when you are older. Of course they are.
Yes, natural pregnancy can happen in our late forties. Yes, women pre-contraception had babies into their forties and even early 50s but the statistics still applied then as they do now. Only then, the chances of survival for mother and baby during child birth were significantly lower. But other than abstinence, women didn't have much choice.
There does become a point where age really isn't 'just a number'. Where is starts to matter. It baffles me that people like to pretend this isn't the case.

A teenage older sibling would love the baby of course - that's what families do but they may never be close

Not necessarily. Small babies are not what you want to be around when you’re a teen.

My sibling was annoying and a pain in the arse with only a 3 year gap let alone 13/14/15 years.

Would of hated a baby in the house then. Just as my teenagers would hate a new baby now.

Some people just get lucky and others hope and prey.

I think this sums up why you can’t factor in the ‘old parents’ concerns.

you can’t do anything right as a parent of a teenager!

No, I’d just accept that it didn’t happen for me and be happy with the child I had. I couldn’t imagine having a teenager in my 60’s

also why not adopt if child won’t be biologically related anyway instead of a risky pregnancy?