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?

where is the old thread which got all handbaggy at dawn that you speak of?

I think I was like you ProfYaffle - I knew about the risks of disability but not how much your fertility was affected. Maybe because my mum had me post 35 I assumed it was do-able for all. Naive I know.

It's not really socially acceptable to point it out though, is it?

I remember my (older) cousing telling me at my hen night that she was planning to have her first child at 35 (she was 31 then). Her and her DP have been together since school and alternated between working and travelling.

Her mother tried for her for almost 10 years and she was in her early 20s when she started trying.

I didn't say anything, I wouldn't, and I hope with all my heart that it happens for them when they want it to.

But, have we been conditioned to not be broody in our 20s or early 30s?

Well I can speak only for myself....in my case, I left school with many girls who had kids between 17yrs-25yrs and I can vividly remember feeling sickened by the thought of myself being pg at that time. It was my horror story!

I worry about my sister.

I don't know if she wants children (we don't talk about stuff like that much ), I think she does, but her DP is an arse about even getting married let alone having children. I am worried she will wait around for him, and by the time she decides she has to choose between him and finding someone who does want the same thing that she does, it will be too late.

I had mine when I was 33 and 34 and was very well aware that fertility dropped off sharply just after these ages.

I don't understand how people can't have been aware of this: I felt bombarded by information in magazines and newspapers.

Never mind the arguments about how much your fertility declines, I'm shocked at how much your risk of chromosomal defects goes up. I've just had my nuchal and just over 2 years ago at my last nuchal I had a risk of 1:1000 and now it's 1:400, that's a 60% increase in just a shade over two years. I did think a third might be nice but to be honest the risks are starting to scare me.... I'm 38 BTW.

Morningpaper 'But it's also frustrating that people seem unable to say "This is the situation" without being accused of being unsisterly '

I don't think of people now saying this is the situation as unsisterly, I'd have like someone to have said it to me 4 years ago!

I can remember when my SIL was expecting her first dc at 26yrs old...I asked my mum (with an incredulous look on my face), 'why does she want a baby?' I would've been 23yrs old!!

I think I was brought up to believe babies = 20s (dunno why). I find it strange (strange as in how lives go differently, not that I/they are freaks ) that out of my group of friends from college, I am on #3 and they have none, and my group from school, only one other has a baby. I sort of expected us to all even out. It isn't a case of high flying careers or the lack with any of us, and most have been with their partners for a long time now.

"But, have we been conditioned to not be broody in our 20s or early 30s? "

For some very good reasons. Let's not forget the other side of this coin.

my sister was 26 and felt incredibly young. didn't know anyone her age that had had kids yet.

I'm showing my age here, but I can remember loads of stuff about "silly woman and their biological clocks" in the 80s - the deal being that women were putting men off them by being really keen to settle down and have children before it was too late. The more things change...

I think, frankly, that it is mostly men who have driven the trend to late parenthood. I didn't want children until I was in my thirties, and I have been very lucky to give birth twice past 35 with fertility treatment. But I do have a lot of friends who have always wanted children and they haven't been able to have them early as men who are willing to marry and start a family in their early to mid twenties are like hen's teeth.

are they good reasons though orm? we can now follow the male model of noworklifebalance investing in our careers outside the home. well whoopidoo! the nuclear model just doesn't work (in terms of mental and emotional and probably physical health) but as women we've totally bought into it. that's what the sisterhood has strived for the 'right' to be wageslaves like men.

i'll be ranting about means of production next i tell you...

I remember being in the US when I was in my late twenties and watching an Oprah show full of women talking about how late in their thirties and early forties they had TTC and had had fertility problems. This jump started the discussions with my then boyfriend (now husband) about not waiting.

I had my first when I was 32 and second when I was 35 and it is interesting that the second child was statistically less likely to have a whole range of things (based on blood screening and nuchal fold stuff) compared to the stats i had from my first child.

But I also remember a conversation with a friend of mine who trained as a midwife about the high incidence of secondary infertility. This and the Oprah show prompt my husband and I to have kids probably earlier than I had wanted. Although we were late really compared to other friends. We were very lucky as I conceived very quickly with both my kids but the story could have been sooooo different.

it is a lot more sisterly i think to say, you know what, your fertility will decline at 35 or so, and you might want to consider when and how children fit in to your plans....

that is a lot more sisterly than pretending the issue does not exist

unfortunately, it is not the most tactful thing you can say is it?

it is a minefield, but pretending that there is no issue is the wrong thing

i don't thik you can have it all, something has to give. at some level

I think it's not just women who should be aware of falling fertility with age, but men too. I know a couple who got together in their mid thirties, the man insisted they wait before trying for a baby,despite the women desperately wanting a baby: first they had to get married, then buy a house, then renovate the house, and now several years later still no baby. I just feel sad for them, especially her.

I'm guessing that many men use their longer-lasting fertility to bide time before committing to a woman...what's the betting that Kate Middleton would marry Prince William tomorrow if he proposed?

Well if it has opened up an alternative way of looking at life for women, then yes they are. If expectations were still for all women to settle down to baby-making in their early-20s and rely on someone else to pay the bills/forge a career I think the risk of not being able to have children would be worth it. For me it would have been anyway.

I agree with the conditioning thing. At school it got drilled into us that if you were bright what you wanted was a career and independance - marriage and babies were for the girls who couldn't quite cut it in the exciting world of work.
I was 35 before I started to think it wouldn't be very nice to be old and not have a family, 37 before dh came round to the idea, and 42 before ds came along.
I now think I would have been much happier as a sahm with a 'brood' of kids.
If I'd really been as bright as I was meant to be, I might have worked out that it was social engineering bollocks to get more women in the workplace.