Sister says my husband and I are selfish for wanting a child in our 40s

[MyTaupeSwan]

I’m 40 this year and my husband is 42 We have a son who just turned 4 and started school in September, and now we feel ready for another child. We left things quite late in terms of having kids we’ve been together 18 years, and in that time we’ve had a lot of fun, traveled, and done everything we could while we had the chance and without too many worries.

Now that we’ve finally settled down, we got married 9 years ago. We were one of those couples that were engaged for a few years not because we didn’t want to get married or weren’t sure, but because we wanted to experience other things before having a wedding. We did couples counseling to make sure we were a good match, both for parenting and for marriage. I was worried about repeating my mum’s mistakes, so I did individual counselling as well.

We’ve always wanted children, but we wanted to have our freedom and experiences first, because having a child is such a big commitment. We’ve faced a lot of judgment, mainly from my family, but we feel ready now. I think we’re great parents even though it’s only been four years, the journey has just begun. Our son is the light of our lives, and we really enjoy being parents.

I’m glad we got to do all the things we wanted before having children, but I do feel judged sometimes. My mum thinks I was selfish for not having kids in my late 20s. I’ve told her that we’ve been trying recently and struggling, but she doesn’t really offer support just says I’m old and should have done it when I was “more fertile.”

My husband and I have had a lot of conversations about this. We’ve decided that if trying naturally doesn’t work, we’ll try a few rounds of IVF, and if that doesn’t succeed, we’ll continue living our lives. We’re lucky to have our son, and he is incredibly loved.

Is 40 too late and are we being selfish.
Seeing my brothers and sister with all their children and their children having siblings, I want that for our son. Maybe I should have spent my 20s having children and we wouldn’t have this issue

It’s not for me n my 40’s, but none of my business if any friends or family decide to have kids in their 40’s. I tease my older sister that it’s her turn for a wee one.

Have you seen how unhealthy some 30 and 40 somethings are ? Bad diet and little exercise ages people horrendously whereas there are plenty of people in their late 50's and beyond that are wayyyyy fitter and healthier..

Wow. Interesting that you’re prepared to openly post your nastiness (benefit of being an anonymous site, I guess)

What on earth is wrong in your life that you’re inspired to be so unpleasant?

My parents were late 30s having me, and 40s having my sister, in the 80s. Their ages never mattered one bit to us! I'm sure it would to some people, but not everyone.

It's more normal in my family I guess, my maternal granny had her youngest at 45, and my DD is just gone a year and I just turned 40. Nobody has blinked an eye about it, friends or family.

Tell your sister to butt out. I had my lovely son when I was 36 and husband was 40. Plenty of parents at his school of a similar age.

I dont think its selfish at all, but so what if it was? It's your life, its yours to be selfish with and live how you choose, women aren't just baby making machines.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in my life thanks. This is AIBU. I think the OP is being unreasonable and I'm telling her why. That's sort of the point of AIBU.

It's interesting you choose to see it as 'nastiness' rather than just honesty and pragmatism. I have serious concerns about the long term effects on societies in highly developed countries of the movement over the last 20 years or so of people choosing to have their children later and later in life, just because medical science has made it feasible to do so. I know for many people the reasons are complex and it's not always a matter of lifestyle choices, but in this case it is.

I think that's a mistake.

I take your point about the increased risk of autism, but would you call it a low risk these days? I'm not sure I would. There barely seems to be a classful of children in any school in the country, whether it's a primary school in a hugely disadvantaged area or the sixth form of the most super-selective grammar in the leafiest town, that doesn't have at least one Autism or AUDHD diagnosis or pending diagnosis in its cohort.

Actually I'd dearly love to see some stats on that if there are any. I know there is much more awareness and understanding of autism now and people who are merely 'on the spectrum' (as opposed to those profoundly disabled by autism win ways which just used to be labelled as mental handicap) are attaining diagnoses that even 10 years ago they would not have had, let alone 30 years ago.

However, I personally don't think it's a coincidence that we have all become so acutely aware of the prevalence and sheer range of people on the autism spectrum in recent years. Since people started having their children older and older, there simply seems to be much more of it about.

If the truth is vile then so be it.

You realise you can be honest and nasty at the same time, yes? Maybe you can also enlighten us as to how a woman naturally conceiving at 40 is down to 'medical science' and not nature?

Anyway, you don't need to worry about societies future, you'll be dead.

Yes 40 is a higher end of having a baby but I was almost 44. I wanted to be 33 but mother nature didn’t play ball and I ended up having five rounds of IVF but I paid for that cost 27,000 and that was nearly 10 years ago so it’s gonna be a lot more money now you’re looking at probably near 40,000 if you need as many round as I did

Saying all that mini blondes is the best thing that could’ve ever happened, she is now nearly 9 and she has Everything and anything she wants

Being an older mum I’m more secure in my career. I have time money and energy just because I’m now in my early 50s doesn’t mean I can’t do things that parents in their 20s could do

So yes, go for it and the poster who said all the stuff negatively about anmino

you need you have a HARMONY test. It’s about £400 and there’s no risk at all to the baby.

What you do need to think about is that if the test show that your baby has got a special needs or downs or anything can you And would you deal with it?

And do you want a perfect baby and then have an abortion or if there are any issues would you still go ahead regardless?

Of course it's possible to conceive naturally at 40+ without any intervention whatsover. It's just not that easy, or that common compared to women who are younger, is it? Of all the women in the UK who have conceived children aged over 40 in the last 20 years, and of all the ones actively TTC now, I'd be really interestd to know the statistical breakdown of how many of them have managed it without any medical intervention, be that fertility boosting drugs, IVF alone or IVF with either egg or sperm donation or both.

I'd also be interested to see what happens to those figures if you stripped out all the women who had been actively TTC for several years before they got that point. So if you removed all the women with known fertility issues for several years, and just focused on the women TTC from 40 onwards (maybe for the first time or maybe as a subsequent PG when previous PG/s presented no problems) it would be interesting to see how many manage to conceive completely naturally. I can't imagine it's a very significant percentage of the whole.

Autism is quite a complicated issue. The stats show an increase in prevalence with aging parents (male and female) but different studies disagree on the extent of this. Part of the difficulty is that Autism occurs on a spectrum, is multifactorial, and is not always straightforward to diagnose. Certainly historically it has been underdiagnosed. As you say, your observation that there is more Autism about since people started having children later is correlation, not causation.

But the fact remains that the absolute risk remains low, whatever ever the age of the parents. A large study in 2017 calculated that 1.5% of children born to parents in their 20s would have Autism, compared to 1.58% to parents in their 40s. Some studies have actually demonstrated a U shaped trend - ie the risk is higher for parents <25.

Biggest risk factor for autism is genetics, so if you want to minimise the chances of having a child with autism then ensure that both parents have no family history of ASD.

Obviously its generally not as easy, but that doesn't make it medical science, does it? In fact, if it wasn't for medical science, we would probably have a smaller population, no one ever saved from illness and disease, but I bet youre ok with it being used in those cases, or for younger men and women who can't easily conceive, often due to mens falling sperm count?

I know quite a few friends who have conceived naturally past 40. My best friend had her children at 41 and 43 without inventions (and even without any miscarriage which I think is quite lucky because that’s obviously a risk to consider). I myself got pregnant first time trying on two occasions at 40, one pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage and then I got pregnant again immediately which led to healthy DS who is now 18 months. There are a lot of other 40s mums in our baby groups.

Why have you consulted professionals and told you mother that you're struggling to conceive if you've only been trying for a few weeks?

This.

You want to have a baby at 40, then have a baby. Don't bother asking mumsnet, they tend to think anyone over the age of 50 has dementia.

My mum had me at 40, I had my dd at 40, my sil had my dn at 42. My parents and mil are all in their nineties now and living independently. My tween daughter has three living grandparents who are all involved and active in her life. Most of my NCT group were late thirties, and I wasn't the oldest member of the group.

I sailed through pregnancy, and am grateful for my dd every single day. Becoming a parent younger just wasn't an option, unless you count the abortion I had at 18 after getting knocked up by a fleeting holiday romance. I don't regret that either btw.

The only thing that gets me down about being a slightly older parent is other people's ignorant attitudes (although never actually come across them in real life, just on here).

I mean, yes, wouldn't it be adorable if everyone met 'the one', got engaged, married, and popped out two babies two years apart (ideally a boy and girl) in perfect unison with their entire friendship group in their early thirties? Guess what though, you can follow that 'how to live your life' script to the letter, but parents still die prematurely, miscarriages happen, children get ill, husbands still cheat. Absolutely nothing in life is guaranteed, and people like your sister would do well to remember that.

It's not that I am 'not okay' with medical science being used to solve infertility. Of course I am. What I am less okay with is people taking for granted that they can put off parenthood for longer and longer for what are often quite shallow or trivial reasons, in the understanding that they can fall back on medical intervention later, as the safety net to solve the inevitable age related fertility issues this causes.

As many as 60% of a woman's eggs are thought to be compromised once she is over 40. Sperm declines in both count and quality in men over 40 and particularly markedly over 45 and 50.

The simple fact is that leaving parenthood too late is playing Russian Roulette with your ability to conceive. It's playing Russian Roulette with your pregnancy managing to go full term and it's playing Russian Roulette with your baby's health and wellbeing.

Being over 40 in pregnancy substantially increases the risk of all these things: miscarriage, congenital abnormalities, chromosomal conditions and syndromes, structural defects such as heart, skull, genital and oesophageal abnormalities, and the risk of autism. And this increase gets markedly greater for every year over 40 the mother is.

I just don't understand why more couples don't take all of that very seriously indeed when deciding when is the right time to start a family, or to add to it. Assuming they have the luxury of choice of course, which clearly the OP has had, and many other women have had. I realise not everybody does.

Perhaps OP should of considered children earlier, but she didn’t so you can’t go back in time and change anything!

I appreciate this is AIBU so all opinions are welcome but I think whatever the reason, some woman are older when they have children and that’s that.

You’re 39, nearly 40. No I don’t think it’s too old. No I don’t think being 60 and having a 18-20 year old is weird.

You obviously knew the risks of leaving things later and you weighed up the pros and cons. You have to do what you want and not what your sisters think.

It wouldn't be for me - but I'm not you, so what does it matter what anyone (including your sister and mum think?)

But you have no idea if OP can get pregnant naturally or not. You also failed to point out the health risks with older males becoming fathers, unsurprisingly.

Can you explain why you feel people putting off kids because they're not ready and don't want them yet, is trivial or shallow? Do you think women have a duty to society to get pregnant young, ready or not?

I don’t understand waiting 20+ years to have children either, especially when you could have the ‘best of both worlds’ by having children between say 28-34.

But if OP isn’t overly attached to the idea of a second child, then it’s no big deal. It’s definitely a gamble and not a risk I personally would choose knowing the stakes.

Maybe take another look at, say, your last paragraph? Would you say that to someone’s face?

But what is there to understand? If someone isn't ready, they're not ready.