To be surprised at someone being pregnant at 44

[Onempretime7788]

I would have thought post 35 was rare

And this is precisely why DH took his self off to the doctors....

She's just had a baby. Knackered and confused is fairly typical regardless of age 😂

Those of us who have grandkids in our 40s know it’s a very different type of tiredness running around in your 40s than 20s xx

A friend was pregnant at 52 - second child. She had to medically pause menopause if I recall.

Unless the 40 yo has their own small children e.g. care sandwich. Whereas my DM was 26 when I was born, by the time DGF & DGM need care I was in my 20/30s so could help with the elder care. Now my children are young adults if my DPs need support ( so far so good they are 76 and 78) then I am freer to provide that than if I still had dependant children.

Hello to the other unicorns (seems there's a herd of us here galloping around Mumsnet). I had 2 in my Mumsnet-approved early 30s, then used pull out contraception for 13 years afterwards, which worked until suddenly it didn't.

My unicorn foal, born when I was 47, is currently 6 months and we've just read Peepo together. No covering up for a teenage pregnancy or IVF here, just a fun weekend away with the husband...

I find it bizarre how often this topic comes up. It's not really a "debate" because the stats are widely available. Someone else pointed out that every year in the UK there are about 2500 babies born to women over the age of 45.

I also found major studies done using family records of Quakers or Mormons from the 19th century which showed about 10% of the women who hadn't been widowed had their final baby after age 45, so hardly some kind of bizarre recent phenomenon. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4270889/. It was also correlated with longer lifespan in both the mother and her siblings.

Personally I would say that a 17/14 year age gap is fab in terms of getting some help, they fight over who gets to play with him after school.

Ha we had an age gap like that. 12 years was the smallest. They were all just obsessed with her. Always someone to pay her attention!

I remember when she was sick all over her bed age 3. A 15 year old and a 19 year old changed her bed whilst l bathed her!

Yep!!

I would not have been ready for kids at 23 (I graduated the year I turned 23) but would happily married. However I never met my person 20 years later so that was that.

It’s even harder I would think. My parents were teens so by the time they need support so will I 😆

But if your young adults have kids, and they all need support, you're split between helping with the grandkids, helping the parents and working possibly full time! Or they could be grand unt they in their 90s and you could and you could be incapable of supporting them because you're struggling in your late 60s.

All this is true but in my model there is another layer of potentially able- bodied adults in the mix, which on balance probably does make things a bit easier.

Especially if youve let yourself get lardy, lardy chops.

Sorry, couldn't resist 😉

Point is, we're all different, and some are fitter than others in their 40s.

'In middle class circles it isn’t acceptable before 35 onwards.'

• that's not true, come on...

My 20s were the best years of my life , travelling , partying without a care in the world . I know for me personally if I was travelling in my 40s , it would never be quite as good as backpacking in my 20s, with little responsibilities. I loved it and do not regret not having a family in my 20s . Playing the field and travelling sounds good to me! Do I think my choices were better than yours ? Absolutely not and I certainly wouldn’t be preaching to anyone else about what they should do. I can imagine there are massive benefits to having children young and them being independent by the time you are in your 40s, freeing you up to do different things . It’s just a different choice both have benefits.

It’s not unreasonable to be a little surprised that someone is pregnant at 44, but it’s completely bizarre to think that pregnancy is rare after 35.