To think I’m leaving having kids too late at 31 and single?

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I’m currently 31 and single, and I often hear people say that if I want kids, I should consider starting sooner rather than later. I’ve always envisioned having children, but I also want to focus on my career and personal goals first. AIBU to think that I still have plenty of time to meet the right person and start a family, or am I risking leaving it too late?

You never know how things are going to work out with relationships etc. People get married at 21 and divorced at 30 and all sorts. I have just found myself single at 35 after a 3 year relationship. So sometimes you just have to see if things line up or not.

A few years ago, I would have said you're fine, plenty of time! I had my kid later in life. But the truth is, you have no idea what the future holds unless you get some tests done. I thought I had plenty of time but now struggling with secondary infertility...

It's not! You can check out the studies if you want, but this is from a BBC article which links to the research:

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.

Chromosomal abnormalities generally result in miscarriage

What twaddle.

Honestly the nonsense on threads like this astounds me.

Unfortunately this poster isn’t as inaccurate as you think. A quick google tells me:

“Up to 35 years old, about 70% of your eggs are chromosomally normal, which then decreases to about 50%, and by the time you reach 40 you can expect about 10-15 % of your eggs to be chromosomally normal. Once an egg becomes abnormal, this can’t be reversed and egg quality can’t be improved.”

Fertility and egg quality are directly related. So yes there are lots of factors that go into a healthy pregnancy, male factor, womb lining etc but the egg really is crucial which is why the evidence shows for older women having IVF success rates are higher with donor eggs from younger women.

I mean 31 isn’t too old to have children . Fertility dips considerably at age 35. So you’re definitely not too old but I do think if I were you I’d be making decisions now .

You have a few options-

Meet someone and know they are the right person to raise children with. Don’t settle though- just read MN threads about useless partners - it’s like having an extra child!

Freeze your eggs now so you don’t have to rush and settle with someone.

Or- get a sperm doner and go it alone.

I would definitely freeze your eggs, get your AMH tested. Then you can enjoy your 30s and not worry or put pressure on yourself. A lot of my friends are similar and have done the same

Just because you appear to have had no luck, doesn’t mean someone with half a brain cell wouldn’t.

‘a mate’😂😂

This is soo true, never clicked until I read that but yes!!

There’s no way anyone on here can know without a magical crystal ball.
If it’s very important to you to have kid/s, I would make it a priority now if I was you.

This.

I focused on the career, now in my 40s and trying to find a good guy is like trying to find a unicorn. I know a ton of great women my age wanting to find a good guy and settle down, I know zero men in this position. All my male friends are married (usually to someone they met at uni or in 20s). If one of them were to become available, they’d be snapped up in 5 mins and have their pick from a big pool of amazing women (their age & younger!).

If a partner/family is important to you, don’t just assume it’ll happen by itself.

I hope it all works out for you.

You've massively overstated miscarriage stats - they are about 1/3 at 40 (though go up sharply after that) not 75% and at 35 they are still relatively similar to younger age levels e.g. c.20%.

The people saying you should have met someone early...they're kind of making me laugh.

I was married at 24 and the marriage was awful. Getting married young is no guarantee it's a happy or healthy marriage. People are scaremongering you with stories of dating in your 30s and 40s but you only have to read how many people are married and miserable.

I don’t think you can dictate how it’s going to happen OP…

it’s very easy for people to say ‘find a guy to marry now’, but life isn’t like that.

id say that if you meet someone who you think you could build a life with, don’t let the opportunity pass you by, as it gets harder to find decent men as you get older ( most of the decent ones get snapped up).

But equally, don’t settle for a guy who isn’t quite right for you. No projects!

you still have plenty of time. If I were you, I’d not worry, but also don’t leave it too long.

you can still focus on your career while carving out some time to go on lots of dates.

If you just don’t meet someone, consider IVF with sperm donor- so much easier than being stuff with a wanker ex.

Also as a woman there's a saying 'mothers baby, fathers maybe.'

As a mother the baby is always yours. You can't guarantee what the father will do whether you've been together since school or met later on.

At 31 you have lots of time to meet someone. And it may work, it may not. Noone can tell you. Plenty of people are in happy relationships that end or can't bear children. You'll get the best advice from a doctor not from Mumsnet. Good luck!

@Aimtodobetter They're not! If you count early/chemical miscarriages, the research says about 75% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage at age 40, but these include very early miscarriage from 3 weeks, so often the woman wouldn't know she was pregnant

There's data on miscarriage risk here if you're interested - you can add ages etc
https://datayze.com/miscarriage-chart

You're confusing the 1/3 stat - that includes women who have not had children yet - it is not the number of women who are childless after the end of their fertile period which is c.15% for women in the 45-50 category.

As someone who has actually gone through assisted reproduction twice successfully and through that consulted with top fertility doctors in both London and New York your data set is just wrong - it also is contradictory to a whole load of much more credible resources e.g. the NHS (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/miscarriage/causes/), the Mayo Clinic, etc. You need to be more careful with which sources you quote as you're scaremongering on a pretty sensitive subject.

Freeze your eggs if you can. I regret not doing that in my late 20s early 30s.

I’m afraid I’m not. The statistics I quoted are on women who will never have children. This is whole population data, not individual fertility at a given age. If you take the percentage of women over 45 with no children as 18%, what you don’t see is the vast difference in childlessness between women at the younger and older end of that age range. For women in their 70s it is only 10%, whereas for women in their late 40s it is 30%+. The stats are also that by 30, only half of women who are not yet mothers or expectant mothers, will go on to become mothers. Clearly that involves some extrapolations based on trends, but it has been accurate to Conservative over the last 20 years. The general tend in the U.K., that has seen the average number of children per mother drop from 2.4 to 1.49 (and lower in other countries - South Korea is on 0.8 and Japan 0.9) is interesting because family sizes have not shifted that much among those who do have children. There are slightly more 1 child families, but broadly speaking the percentage of 2, 3 and 4+ children families are the same as 40 years ago. What’s changed is the number of women having no children. Mostly, not by choice.

I met my now husband at 31, married and had first baby at 34, second baby at 35. At 31 your fertility isn't a major concern - the hard part is finding a man decent enough to father any kids! Most people who meet later in life go through stages faster than those who get together in their early 20s ...

That website is a meta analysis of peer reviewed research studies into miscarriage. It links the primary sources beneath the model.

I'm definitely not scaremongering - you might have contradictory medical research you've been shown or read, but this database is based on fairly robust medical research so I don't think it can be thought to be scaremongering.

I'm very much of the opinion that the more you know about fertility etc the better equipped you are to make decisions. I'm not trying to scare OP - lots of women CAN easily get pregnant up until age 45. I actually know lots who have. But you don't know if you're an outlier who will be super fertile in your 40s or someone who becomes infertile in their early 30s. I think it's best to know all the averages and the research and make your plans around this

YANBU I met my ex at 31, had my son at 37.
My mum had my sister at 45, totally natural and she was a healthy baby.