Honesty and kindness required: natural conception after 40?

[RaisingYankeesinParis]

Hello,

saw a new doctor today. We want a 4th but not badly enough to do the IVF route. We are Catholics and greatly desire a natural conception, but I am 42. (Our babies are 10, 7 and 4). I am recovering from a blighted ovum.

The doctor told me that the rate of miscarriage goes way up starting at 39. i told the doctor I feel surrounded by successful 40-something mothers of newborns and he said very few admit to having multiple miscarriages or to using IVF.

I was interested to know what Mumsnet’s experience is. Have you or has someone you know succeeded in conceiving and carrying naturally ?

no mean comments please. Just wanted to know if I have been super naiive to even imagine it might be possible. Cheers

I agree and we would terminate. I spent some time on the Mumsnet threads on tfmr and found them absolutely devastating. There were some younger moms and some 42 yr olds.

I'm 42 and due my second baby in 4 weeks. I had my first nine years ago and had years of secondary infertility and two miscarriages. All pregnancies were natural and no particular explanation for the infertility in my thirties. I would recommend that any woman who wants guaranteed two or more start having children by thirty at the latest. Just too risky unfortunately to start later.

I've been ttc for 1.5 years. I'm 41 now. Only had one bfp in that time that ended in a mmc. Fertility results from clinic aren't great at all but hoping to try ivf. Aware the odds are still very against me unfortunately. But at least I can say I have it all I could. But very much coming to terms with not conceiving whether naturally or ivf.

My friend had her 3rd just before her 41st birthday. Baby healthy and healthy pregnancy. Although as others have said risks are greater, it's definitely becoming more common to have children in early 40s x

I am not sure i agree with this perspective. Yes you need a man. Not the career, in order to make the baby. The career has to come after the baby. If I have learned anything from the threads and threads and threads about rounds of ivf, tfmr etc, it’s that. Nature does not wait for careers.

I’m one of those who only decided to have a baby post 40. Conceived naturally, quickly and carried. Did need a c-section for placenta previa where age seemed to be the only relevant risk factor that fitted.

Definitely more than one health professional raised eyebrows and didn’t seem to believe me immediately when they were asking how many previous pregnancies I’d had including those that resulted in miscarriage or termination (0).

I personally don’t think that’s the right approach to have. Infertility and loss can happen at any time in a woman’s life, statistically it get’s higher as the woman ages but some women are more statistically affected anyway. There are women who have suffered many, many losses who started trying in their twenties and women who have conceived naturally in their forties with no loss. Statistics give an overview of the general population but each individual case is different and on the whole I don’t think we should encourage girls not to have careers for conceiving children. Especially as if they have a career, they are more likely to get paid sick leave for their losses so they don’t have to continue as if nothing happened.

With regards statistics, the statistics say that across the general population women in their 40s struggle to conceive naturally, will suffer more losses and have higher risks of having children with additional needs. There will be individuals and stories of those individuals that don’t follow the statistics but they don’t help you because you will either follow the statistics or you won’t. Hearing stories doesn’t increase your chance of beating the stats.

I think what you need to do is really work out how you would cope with a child with additional needs. You’ve said you tfmr but you’ve also said you are Catholic, so even if you know that the baby won’t survive or have any quality of life - how are you and DH going to feel about tfmr? Are you going to be able to live with your decision after? It’s a heartbreaking decision for anyone to go through but being Catholic will add another layer to that. What if the child has additional needs that aren’t evident until the child is born or the child is in school? Can you cope? If you are happy with the worse case scenario, then try until you are successful or unfortunately until the heartbreak becomes too much to bear.

This is ridiculous. Great that your life turned out exactly how you wanted it, but it’s not that straight forward for a lot of people. I’ve been trying to get pregnant for over five years. I’m now 37. I haven’t prioritised any sort of career over getting pregnant. I decided getting pregnant with an abusive expartner and no stability wasn’t a good idea. Get off your high horse.

I got pregnant naturally at 40 and gave birth at 41. We started trying when I was 38 and it took us 27 cycles to conceive. I have not had any miscarriages.