do you think that it's possible to have a sensible conversation about awareness re falling fertility in the light of the other thread....

[Heathcliffscathy]

sorry about the humungous thread title...

but do you think we could talk about the question of putting off career to have babies/being aware of falling fertility as you age without resort to handbags at dawn?

i know it is a terribly emotional thing for all of us (me included massively). but is there room for discussing whether there should be a cultural seachange back to having your children younger...to avoid the pain and heartache of waiting til you're in your forties to start and struggling?

You see, if I were a bloke and could get sex and female companionship for as long as I felt like it without giving up much of my freedom or committing myself to anything I might regret later, then I think I would!

I agree with WhipsandFurs analysis: 'the culture of 50yrs ago was such that people really only expected to have sex within marriage, even that sex was inextricably linked to being married...cue, lots of eager, young men keen to get married so that they could experience sex.'

I don't want to wind the clock back 50 years, but even given evidence of some decline in male fertility over age, I'm not sure what kind of incentives would ever work to make men go for kids at a younger age once you've broken the link between sex and marriage.

absolutely, which is why i don't dismiss out of hand the statement that effective and available contraception has been a blessing and a curse for women. The biggest beneficiaries have been men.

Women have traditionally gone for older men when it comes to marriage have they not?

Was that in the days when men were traditionally the providers in financial terms?

Now that we can provide on a more or less equal basis are we less ageist?

I think emotionally, the older man/younger woman scenario is best (I'm only talking by a few years)

Don't see how any of this contributes to female reduced fertility issues though.

Fertility is yet another reminder that 'we' women really can't have it all. Perhaps if we had better paternity rights women would have babies younger as it wouldn't ruin their careers. And is it me or are men teenagers until they're about 30?

I bought taking control of your fertility yesterday (whilst in tears in the bookshop, felt like i had a big sign at the checkout saying 'over here! 37 y o desperate to have child but struggling).

i read it last night.

it is surprisingly political (pleasingly so) and very pertinent to this thread.

she argues that it is a kind of insanity that women AND men and healthcare practitioners are not educated about how a woman's cycle works and how you can tell to a window of 3 or 4 days per month or so when you are fertile and when not.

she argues that non-barrier contraceptives AND fertility treatments have side effects and downsides that mean there is a high price to pay for using them, and that the fact that the Fertility Awareness Method is free, cannot be patented and therefore is of no interested to profit making corporations is why there is so little awareness of it. If used properly it is one of the most effective means of contraception there is. Obviously it is highly unforgiving as she puts it if it isn't used properly.

An awareness of FAM would also result in a woman knowing exactly when her fertility was beginning to change/reduce.

Very interesting stuff.

As I get older I begin to understand more and more that capitalism is a system that underlies a lot of injustice and preventable heartache.

I don't think that there's no hope though. I hate to drop DH in it (which of course means that I'm about to ), but he always knew that he wanted marriage (and probably children) one day. He just felt too young. And the reason why he felt too young was that no-one else our age was doing it. Once several friends had settled down and were still pretty normal, he felt fine about it. I'm sure that he isn't alone. It's just that our culture at the moment means that you only tend to see friends doing it and surviving when you're in your thirties.

In our case I was the one very ambivalent about marriage and children, until a switch was thrown in my head as the clock started ticking. We are very lucky to have two DDs.

Where is the original thread which went pear shaped?

Good point, MrsTittleMouse. DH was always into the idea of kids in principle (we married at 23, and had DS1 at 27, btw) but it was fairly easy for him to visualise himself as a father because the people we spent most time with (the other students in a fully-residential college) were all having kids then. It was a very easy decision for both of us.

Don't know a lot about FAM but surely it can't take into account the quality of the egg produced. I don't know but I would imagine that poor egg quality is quite a large factor in infertility re:age.

MTM - i think "peer pressure" is absolutely a factor. we had one set of friends who started "early" (late 20s) and now have three, but most of DH's friends, all in their mid-30s, still are not "settled" or have just gotten married but no kids yet. (and i want to tell all them all to get a move on, because their wives are the same age.)

The idea of having children is very scary, isn't it? And until you see someone that you like and trust going through it and retaining their relationship and sense of humour it is even more scary.

I suppose that extended families would tend to be so large and in such a small geographical area that it would be normal to have babies around. But that didn't happen for me or DH. A friend of ours was horrified that the first nappy that either of us changed was DD's. He had babysat lots of younger cousins and was very comfortable with babies and young children. We weren't! We also had the experience of seeing a couple having babies and (to our eyes) becoming complete martyrs. Neither of the adults, or their relationship, seemed to matter any more. The children weren't the first priority, they were the only priority, and it really put us off having children of our own for a while.

sophable, I find it difficult to understand how educated men and women (the types who are likely to delay childbearing) and healthcare professionals do not understand how a woman's cycle works.

When I started ttc, my GP, completely unsolicited, told me to have sex regularly within a 10 day window around the midpoint of my cycle - something I already knew so I smiled nicely. I reckon it is widespread knowledge that we are less likely to get pregnant if we do have sex during or near our period.

And if a reasonably intelligent and educated woman has difficulties falling pregnant, the information is all over the internet.

I am also not sure how accurate the statement about how watching a woman's cycles and signs is an effective method of contraception - not all women have regular periods and some women's signs are more evident than others.

Younger men can be ready for children. Dh is 5 years younger than me. Before meeting him, I was not that keen on children. But since I knew he wanted children, we started ttc asap as I was already 34. Dd was born one year later.

There is not much a woman can do to change a man's mind by quoting statistics on fertility if he is not ready. So I maintain that a woman who wants children within before 35 must be quite ruthless in who she hooks up with by the time she reaches her late twenties. Basically step up or ship out.

I don't think choosing an older man is necessarily the solution. True, he is more likely to feel peer pressure from his friends but he might be dead set against children already. His sperm would also be of lower quality, lol.

No substitute for just doing due diligence, whatever his age, of whether he wants children and the time frame.

I posted this on the older mums thread but think it is pertinent here. I think there is a bit of a stigma about having children young, that it's a waste of education and you're throwing away your life and your future.

My mother (who is in her late 70s) talks very disparagingly about my cousin who got a first from Oxford, worked for about 2 years and then became a SAHM to four children.

I'm not entirely sure how we resolve all this ...

blueshoes, I have heard of educated GPs who have told women that all women ovulate on day 14 of their cycle, or that all women ovulate exactly 14 days before the start of their next period.

I do think the stuff in TCOYF about levels of various hormones during a monthly cycle, and what other effects they produce in the body, and how cervical fluid may change over the course of a cycle, and about variations in cycle lengths and luteal phases, ought to be included in PHSE, or whatever they call it these days. You get the basic half hour on periods but often the rest of the cycle seems to be ignored. Hence the educated women on here worried about a "discharge" that turns out to be perfectly normal cervical fluid. I don't know whether or not it would help with fertility, but I think it's information that young women ought to have.

you said it for me portandlemon! thanks!

there is a lot more to understanding the cycle than the fact that you're less likely to get pregnant round your period.

Yeah I'm not overly convinced by the medical skills of GPs either - off topic entirely, but my friend's told her last week that there was no way her DD was going to get chicken pox from my DS because she had no spots 4 days after they'd seen one another

Have read all the posts and hae been totally gripped by this thread. Just to add that I am surprised at implications that the information is out there are widely known - at least among the suitably educated! IMO this is where part of the problem lies; individuals seem to think that what THEY know represents THE knowledge, and a universal knowledge at that.

The information I have come across about fertility seems to focus only at the age extremes. If you are young sexually active, you are at great risk of becoming pregnant. Conversely, for the 'older woman' if you have been as sexually active as you are able for a pre-stated number of years, medical intervention can assist you achieve the same. Ultimately, that women within a defined age bracket can have children. That message seems to assure women that parenthood, as a choice, is a given. That, as an approach can lure women into a false sense of 'assurance'.

While there may be a lot of information out there, my issue is that it needs to be presented in a way that highlights the relevance on an individual level. A way that encourages to gain knowledge about their own unique fertility/ovulation patterns and capabilities. Sadly I have three very close friends who are desperately, desparately trying for children. One of them are over 35 and one is under thirty and sufferred a mc about 6 years ago. The other two had terminations 7-9 years ago. All have PHDs. My sister tried unsuccessfully for 11 years to conceive; she has now adopted.

Everyone has a file in their brains marked 'I know this vaguely but it's not relevant to me yet/ever'. In my early 20s it has some stuff in it about not everyone getting pregnant as soon as they winked at someone. Now in my late 30s, I think it may contain information about the menopause. (Must dust it off and have a look).

There's knowing stuff and knowing stuff, IYSWIM. For me, what moves information from one bracket to the other tends to be more 'personal experience from a respected source' and less 'medical professional advice'. Sad but true. So what might make the difference in getting the message across is older women telling younger women they know some of the real facts of life.

Having been one to watch for stretchy mucous (EWCM) and use basal temperature themometres myself, I am not convinced that that information is any more or less helpful than just regularly having sex. In other words, rather than going for that one (or two) accurate hit, just roughly making sure you have sex one or two days around the time you are likely to be fertile.

Some women can be fertile without having much outward signs of EWCM (because it is around the entrance to the cervix). And some women have EWCM just before a period is about to start, completely unrelated to fertility. Also, basal temperature is notoriously difficult to get an accurate reading of. I have done the charts and they weren't terribly illuminating.

Upshot is for dd (my first) i was a faithful practitioner of the 'signs'. After dd, I did not have time to plot and scheme conception, result is I got pregnant first try (mc) and the same time it took to conceive dd. Not having to watch signs was also a whole lot less stressful too.

every one or two days

Anyone point to the original thread which sparked this one?

This one.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/773263-to-lack-sympathy-for-my-friend-who-is-unable-to

Agree, procrastinating. There is so much noise out there the real significance of a health message gets lots until someone trusted points out to you how it relates to you.

Perhaps the noise is why the message filters through to some educated women (me) but not to others.

I still maintain that it is common knowledge that the mid-thirties is generally regarded as the tipping point for a woman's fertility and that it is widely documented that many women feel the pressure of the biological clock, whether or not they choose to heed it, once they turn 30.

I just feel very depressed about it all... I didn't want children - then at 31 I had a light bulb moment and changed completely to definately wanting some. But - I then got engaged and so waited till after the wedding before trying (age 32) - and now I am 33, having recently had a miscarriage and feeling like we should have started trying sooner..

I feel too old

But in my head I knew fertility went down after 35 - and assumed 32 wasn't too late to start trying. I guess I didn't think too much about not being able to. Anyway - what I'm saying is I had the info - but wasn't worried - now I am.